Waste back to the producer
Actions to return the problem to source controllers
Cleaning up is of course very good. If you clean up litter in your spare time, you are doing good! But cleaning up alone is not enough. Before you know it there is litter on the street again, more and faster than we can collectively clean up. This is why it is important that the waste is registered and returned to the perpetrator. In this way the problem is returned to the source controllers. They can take targeted steps to prevent litter. In this way, producers, the government and residents see that a solution really has to be found. Fortunately, there are already some good actions to get the waste back to the producer!
The Litterati app
American Jeff Kirschner is the founder of impact company Litterati. He developed an app of the same name that allows users to map waste streams worldwide. Kirschner started this, by walking through Lisbon with dozens of journalists and picking up one plastic package after another from the streets. He then took a picture of this with his smartphone and threw the waste away in the trash. Many followed suit. In a few hours, they cleaned up no less than 1,241 pieces of trash! How does Kirschner know that exactly? With each photo it is noted which piece of garbage it is, after which the app automatically links the location to the photo. Litterati collects more and more information about where the litter is concentrated in cities and what kind of litter is most common. Kirschner states that ten thousand people worldwide are already using his app!
GoClean/Litterati Data Festival
During the GoClean/Litterati festival an attempt is made to make the city free of litter and to register it. In this way we can build together on a clean living environment, which will also stay clean. During a period of three weeks at least 50,000 pieces of litter will be picked up and registered.
By recording all the litter and tagging it in the Litterati app, you show those who are causing the litter: Look, here it was not neat. By us it is "cleaned up, tagged and neat". After all, litter is very harmful to nature and to the health of people and animals. During this festival people are encouraged to register as many pieces of litter as possible by themselves or together in and group. If successful, it will even be rolled out worldwide.
The Pick Up 10 App
Photographing and uploading litter in the Literatti app proved to be a rather cumbersome process of archiving and tagging photos. Because of this, Google joined forces with the litter data of Dirk 'Zwerfinator' Groot. This made it possible to recognize litter in a photo. The Plastic Soup Surfer saw the potential of this tool and partnered with the 'new' Literatti to start 'Pick Up 10'.
So like Litterati, the Pick Up 10 App is meant to motivate people to pick up trash and photograph it. The waste is registered on the basis of material, type of packaging and brand. With this data, the cause of the waste becomes clear and can be knocked on the doors of companies and legislators to ask for change!
Back to Sender
Through the Back to Sender campaign in the Netherlands and Belgium, organizations and citizens are encouraged to return empty cans and plastic bottles they find in litter to the producer. This can be done both online and by post, to publicly alert the beverage industry to its contribution to the litter problem and the plastic soup. In this way, beverage companies need to take responsibility and hopefully there will be an expansion of deposits to the small single-use beverage containers. After all, deposits have a huge positive effect on the environment.
Return2Sender
Traditional recycling throws all plastics in a big pile. With this, only low quality products can be made, such as garbage bags. Return2Sender wants to do this differently. They collect used plastic products to reuse them as new raw material, for the same high quality products. This "horizontal recycling" gets the maximum value out of every piece of plastic. How do they do this? All old products are collected after which all plastics are sorted and grouped. Finally, the plastic is reused as raw material, for the same new product. So there is sustainable recycling, without waste to the earth!
About Retulp
Retulp is een voorvechter van duurzaamheid en zet zich in voor de vermindering van wegwerpplastic door middel van herbruikbare en milieuvriendelijke waterflessen en thermosbekers. Het assortiment bestaat uit innovatieve producten die ontworpen zijn om het dagelijks gebruik van plastic afval verminderen. Met een focus op kwaliteit, functionaliteit, en stijl, biedt Retulp een breed scala aan opties voor zowel persoonlijk gebruik als voor zakelijke geschenken, allemaal met het doel om een positieve impact op het milieu te maken. Elk product is een stap richting een schonere wereld. Bekijk het duurzame assortiment via onderstaande knop.
