Recycling machines at bus terminals offer sustainable disposal benefits

Recharging your transport card, adding credit to your cell phone and increasing your digital account balance are no longer possibilities that only money can afford. Now, recycling can also be synonymous with advantages for Salvador’s pockets.

The person responsible for this is called Return, a recyclable waste collection machine that exchanges materials that would otherwise be discarded for points that turn into digital currencies to redeem financial benefits.

For each type of product collected, a Tricoin is generated – as the digital currency paid for returns is called. In them, it is possible to deposit aluminum, plastic, long-life packaging (cardboard), steel and glass. A bottle of water, for example, is equivalent to 10 tricoins. A can of soda guarantees 15 coins.

To start recycling, it only takes three steps. First, register on the Return website (triciclo.eco.br) or Triciclo app – the company responsible for the Return Machine Project, which promotes the initiative -, gather the materials and then deposit them in the nearest machine .

There are six of them in Salvador, all located at the bus terminals managed by CCR Metrô Bahia. They are: Pirajá, Retiro, Acesso Norte, Rodoviária, Pituaçu and Airport, considered strategic points to launch the circular economy program in the capital of Bahia.

“Public transport is where you start and end your day. He also has, in that environment, the possibility of promoting environmental education. Our operation in the CCR environment allows for a day-to-day work, together with the citizen, to ensure more sustainability”, says Felipe Curry, CEO of Ambipar Triciclo.

Already with a history of circular economy projects, which benefit about 15 families, in addition to the Sister Dulce social works in some of them, the coordinator of the Environment at CCR Bahia, Gabriella Brito, understands the partnership as a way to increase the number people benefited, given the daily flow of 340,000 passengers at the subway bus terminals.

“We are making our terminals available and, very soon, our stations to help plant, in people’s minds, the seed that recycling is important. In addition to also promoting the circular economy, not only for those who take the subway, but for as many people as possible”, he highlights.

Already in operation, the Tricycle system can be used anywhere in the country, thanks to the registration made on the platform, which registers the materials recycled by the user in any Return machine.

If a user from Salvador moves to São Paulo and his parents continue to dispose of them in the machines at CCR bus stations, the beneficiary can use his coins to recharge a transport card at the São Paulo recharge terminals, even without having deposited the waste there, for example.

To ensure that as many people as possible are able to recycle and redeem Tricons, Returns are capped at 25 paid discards per day. This doesn’t prevent a user from depositing more than that amount, he just won’t be paid for them.

According to the CEO of Ambipar Triciclo, the day with the highest flow is Monday, as it comes after the weekends, when people consume more drinks and produce a greater amount of waste. All material deposited by users is collected by the company itself. In it, waste undergoes sorting, is categorized and passed on to recycling industries.

Benefits:
– single ticket
– Mobile recharge
– Saraiva Plus
– MTU card
– PagBank balance
– Paid Market balance

Spots:
– Aluminum: 15 tricoins
– Plastic / Pet: 10 tricoins
– Steel: 10 tricoins
– Cardboard: 5 tricoins
– Glass: 5 tricoins

*With guidance from the deputy chief of reporting Monique Lôbo

• Click here to read this article in its entirety at Correio da Bahia;
• Click here to read this article in its entirety in the First Journal.