Over the course of six months, 44 retailers in Quito collected 10,000 polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, equivalent to 402 kilograms, as part of the ‘Community Recycling’ initiative, led by PepsiCo through Positive (pep+) and in which the companies Fundes and Enkador-Origin®.

The project aims to encourage and involve business owners and customers in recycling containers made of this type of plastic, and it has been well received by consumers, store owners point out.

More than 200,000 single-use plastics will no longer be produced per month with the installation of reusable tableware in a San Marino food court

According to the owner of Bakery and Micromarket José Antonio Torres, the container they receive the material into is filled two to three times a week. “We have acquired a lot of bottles and a good predisposition from many of our customers. As owners, we are willing to help in any way we can and we have had a great reception,” he said.

For his part, the owner of La Cuencanita, Guillermo Márquez, who joins the initiative, said that he will encourage his customers to recycle bottles made from this material. “We’re going to start talking to people to get them to abandon the material,” he said.

For ‘Recycling in the community’, five axes of action were considered:

An Ecuadorian consumes about 225 plastic bottles a year, and more than 13,000 tons of waste are produced daily throughout the country, of which only 6% is recovered, according to the companies involved in the project, citing data from the National Institute of Statistics and Population Censuses (INEC), due to of which they believe that with this alliance they will work on the PET bottle recycling process and thus take care of the environment.

The recycled 402 kilograms were transformed into new PET bottles, after undergoing a rigorous industrial process to meet safety conditions and be usable, which was carried out by Enkador-Origin®.