Recycle and win €200

Anyone can participate in this lottery by writing their mobile or telephone number on the recyclable materials and disposing of them in the ‘bring-in-sites’ or having them collected by door-to-door in GreenPak localities.

Who ever participates has the opportunity to win €200 a week according to the scheme launched. The lottery initiative combined with the separation of waste, as launched by GreenPak, should help to increase the number of Maltese to separate waste in their homes.

Malta registered almost double the amount in recyclable waste collection and left using public facilities over a three year period.

The amount increased from 10,314 tonnes in 2008 to 20,197 tonnes in 2010. The amount of recyclable waste collected over the first six months of 2011, equalled that recorded during the first 12 months of 2008.

During the launch of the new initiative by GreenPak, parliamentary secretary Chris Said said, “This statistic strengthens the heart of every person involved in the implementation of these initiatives and those involved in the actual waste management".

Said said this was because the Maltese and Gozitan population were not just committing themselves verbally but were playing an active role by separating more waste.

Two primary methods in Malta and Gozo are used to dispose of recyclable waste and involve using the scheme 'Recycle Tuesdays' which involves separating waste in grey or green bags and left outside homes to be collected by rubbish collectors from each locality or alternatively separating and disposing waste themselves using the 'bring-in-sites'.

Statistics provided by WasteServ show that between 2008 and 2010, the scheme 'Recycle Tuesdays' gained popularity because it allowed the amount of waste collected to double using a more convenient method for households while the ‘bring-in-sites’ held a constant level of around 4,000 tonnes a year.

“The amount of waste which is separated for recycling amounts to roughly 10% of all domestic waste generated by the country. It is for this reason that the government, local councils and recyclable waste collecting scheme organisers need to continue working together to convince more people to separate waste for recycling,” said Said.

Apart from this GreenPak will be taking care of incentives and educating the population to separate more recyclable waste. In 2010, GreenPak collected more than 6,000 tonnes of recyclable waste.

“GreenPak has a collaboration agreement with 28 local councils to manage and finance all recyclable waste collection operations from both ‘bring-in-sites’ and door-to-door collection in each locality,” said Chief executive of GreenPak Mario Schembri.