MILAN – An innovation that helps encourage recycling and gives out food for cats and dogs. In Istanbul the company Pugedon has created a special machine the “Smart Recycling Box” that dispenses food and water in exchange for recycled plastic bottles.
THE IDEA – The concept of reverse vending has been around for a few years, but in Istanbul the first tool to combine passion for the environment with love for cats and dogs has been made. The company Pugedon designed a machine that dispenses food for cats and dogs into feeding bowls. Users can even empty out remaining water from the bottle for the animals to drink.
THE BENEFITS – There are two benefits to this distributor: it is an incentive to recycle and also provides a solution to the problem of strays. The price of the food is covered by the value of the bottles put into the bins and destined for recycling. As Time Magazine reports, the issue of managing strays in cities around the world came to the fore during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Tackling this problem and with the intention of creating value from something that is generally considered waste is the motivation behind the design of the “Smart Recycling Boxes”, which could turn out to be a new frontier in recycling applied to love for our four-legged friends.
