ECO PARTNERS BULGARIA - Separated waste collection


Title: ECO PARTNERS BULGARIA

Country: Bulgaria

Bio-based sector: Waste recycling

Involved actors: 21 Bulgarian municipalities

Description:

ECO PARTNERS BULGARIA is the organization for the recovery of packaging waste on the Bulgarian market, established in 2016. The company is a joint-stock company that does not distribute profits, and the funds received are invested in the construction and development of systems for separate collection and utilization of packaging waste.

From its creation until today, the company has built systems for separate collection of packaging waste in 21 municipalities in the country, with a total of more than 908,000 residents covered by separate collection systems, served by more than 3,900 separate collection containers with a total volume of more than 6,760,000 liters.

Separate collection systems include multiple components, with the ultimate goal being to recycle the collected packaging waste. The company's future investments are primarily aimed at expanding and upgrading the existing infrastructure for separate collection, innovative measures and approaches based on an analysis of the needs and attitudes of the population, as well as conducting targeted campaigns to increase public responsibility towards our environment.

The company adheres to the principles:

  1. Continuous upgrading and improvement of the conditions for separate collection in the service of citizens and society.
  2. Targeted work to increase the ecological culture of the population and education of ecological awareness among children.

Results/lessons learnt:

The company created a mobile application to make it as easy as possible for citizens to deal with separate collection. The company developed the Eco Partners App to fill the gaps in terms of awareness and understanding of the separate collection of packaging waste, while at the same time modernizing it, digitizing it and making the process engaging enough to retain attention. The Eco Partners App provides information on the different types of packaging and how and where it is correct to dispose of them. The information is presented in an interesting and innovative way - when scanning the barcode on the package. In addition, in the application, the user can see on a map all the yellow and green containers for the separate collection of packaging waste in involved municipalities and find the ones closest to him. Thus, in an accessible and attractive way, every user will have the knowledge of proper separate collection of waste. Container-related alerts can also be submitted very quickly and easily in the app.

The main functions of the Eco Partners App are:

  • SCAN - when scanning the barcode on any package, the application receives information about the material of the given package, and whether it can be disposed of in one of the colored containers of the EP - respectively , if this is possible, in which exactly.
  • LOCATION - to further benefit its users, the app uses the location of the device to calculate where the nearest Eco Partners' container can be found. In addition to this, it is quite easy to report the containers.
  • RULES - increased awareness is at the heart of the application, that's why a short educational guide is also available for each user to remind what can and cannot be thrown in the colored containers, what steps to take before throwing away the given packaging and where.

Link to the website: https://ecopartners.bg/en/