Good practice:

"Trips for trash" initiative

As part of the wider European Mobility Week (EMW) and Car Free Day events in Almada, a stand every year a stand is set up on one of Almada's main city centre streets, during one or two days. Residents of the Municipality can go to this stand and bring along recyclable materials, and in return receive a single-trip public transport ticket of their choosing (bus, train, tram or boat) than can be used to try-out the service and hopefully become regular users afterwards. This 'eco-exchange process' allowed people to exchange a defined set of materials such as cans, bottles, edible oils, used batteries, damaged small appliances, radiographs and even medicines that they no longer use, for free trips on public transport in Almada. The number of eco-exchanges is limited to 3 per person or 6 per entity (for example, a daycare center for elderly people). Also, to facilitate the process packages must be dry and flattened and the plastic bags, papers and cardboard properly packed in a bag. As an example, 2kg of paper or cardboard, 6 bottles of glass, or 1 litre of used cooking oil, were exchangeable for one bus, tram, boat, or train trip. City Council staff members are present to helppeople put the recyclable materials in the correct ecopoint, to distribute the PT tickets and to help the waste colection company collect the reciclable materials during the event.

This initiative has low costs associated (<1500€). We calculate around 250€ for human resources (4 City Council staff members working 4h each), PT tickets are provided cost free by the operators (we buy the support cards which costed 875€ in 2019) and recyclable trash is collected free of charge.

The "Trips for trash" initiative is one of the most successful activities of Almada's EMW, People have adhered to this initiative since its first edition and a significant amount of recyclable waste was collected. Overall, this initiative has resulted in roughly 6,300 public transport tickets exchanged to about 2,500 recipients, resulting in several tonnes of materials collected and recycled.

It is a highly successful initiative that does not require significant investment costs, with mainly human resources, acquiring support cards and the collaboration from the PT operators and local stakeholders being all that is required. Due to its success, several other Portuguese cities, including Moita and Almeirim have decided to follow Almada's example, and to include similar "trips for trash" schemes as part of their own European Mobility Week promotion.