The UK arm of recycling group Veolia (Aubervilliers / France; www.veolia.com) and restaurant chain Leon (London / UK; www.leon.co) have set up a “reverse vending machine” at Kings Cross railway station in London, where commuters can deposit empty plastic bottles. The machine is designed to accept drink bottles and aluminium cans, after research by YouGov (London; www.yougov.co.uk) showed that 81% of people would go out their way to deposit disposable containers for recycling. The machine will operate for six months to encourage on-the-go recycling. Each bottle returned will receive a voucher worth 10% off the bill at the nearest Leon restaurant.

The companies claim the UK fails to recycle 40%, equivalent to 240,000 t/y, of plastic bottles properly because they are not placed in the right bins. The scheme is in line with UK government propositions to increase recycling – see Plasteurope.com of 25.02.2019 – and was designed to target the disposable drinks containers most commonly discarded on the go – bottles under 75 ml as well as aluminium cans – in order to make it easy for people to recycle, reduce littering and enable more materials to be salvaged.

Veolia has been setting up partnerships across several borders. It also recently announced that it would be collaborating with Nestlé (Vevey / Switzerland; www.nestle.com) on recycling schemes, especially for flexible plastic packaging, in 11 countries – see Plasteurope.com of 26.03.2019. The French recycling and resource management company is also working with Tetra Pak (Pully / Switzerland; www.tetrapak.com) to improve the recyclability of the Swiss group's beverage cartons in the EU – see Plasteurope.com of 26.11.2018.