Travellers in Rome can now work towards free metro tickets by clocking up discounts each time they recycle plastic bottles at special machines in metro stations.
Roma, plastica da riciclare in cambio di biglietti per il trasporto pubblico. #Verdi: “Soluzione interessante, l’abbiamo proposta all’Eav. Potrà essere un incentivo alla differenziata e ridurrà i passeggeri senza biglietto” pic.twitter.com/wTIUmdn4Zr
— Francesco Borrelli (@NotizieFrance) July 24, 2019
Commuters will be able to pop PET bottles into a machine which crushes and sorts the plastic. Bottles can be as big as 2 litres and as small as 0.5 litres.
For each bottle recycled, commuters will earn a 5 euro cents discount on their metro ticket.
They will have to recycle 30 bottles to get one free standard €1.50 (R24) ticket.
The credit can be redeemed using the myCicero and Tabnet apps which are used to buy public transport tickets in the city.
You just need to open the app, select the +Recycle+Travel tab and scan their unique barcode under the machine’s reader.
Then pop the bottles in and the credit will be loaded onto the app, where you make your ticket purchase.
The machines are at just three stations for now, namely Cipro on the A line, Piramide on the B line and San Giovanni on the C line.
If after a year the project is successful, the city will expand it to other stations.
At the end of last year, thousands of Romans protested against what they see as a decay of the city over many years. They pointed to potholes, uncollected rubbish and vermin which are prolific in the city.
Feature image: Hans Braxmeier.
