Meet the bin that treats its own rubbish

Start-up Green Creative, based at Sucy-en-Brie, on the outskirts of Paris, is starting to make a name for its Made in France products that find new ways to encourage recycling and cutting waste.

Its R3D3 rubbish bin is named in recognition of the Star Wars robot R2D2 but also stands for recyclage de 3 déchets as it only accepts and treats three types of rubbish – aluminium cans, plastic bottles or plastic and cardboard cups.

When an item is put in the bin it is rejected if it is not one of these drinks packaging.

Waste is then sorted into one of its three categories and then compressed so each bin can hold 100 50cl plastic bottles, 300 50cl cans and 400 cups – this is 10 times more than an ordinary bin.

The R3D3 bin is also ‘connected’ so it will tell its owner when it is full and how many items it has collected.

Companies like Bank BPI France have tested the bin and find it a plus to be able to tell their employees that they have successfully recycled so many kilos of aluminium, plastic or cardboard. They have bins in 20 of their offices.

Now Green Creative hopes to get worldwide interest in the bin aiming it at airports, businesses and cafeterias to end unsightly, overflowing rubbish in public places, cut down on cleaners’ bills and, above all, encourage recycling.

Marketing manager Aman­dine Clémençon said it would encourage recycling: “It is attractive and fun as it lights up when you put something in it, so people will want to use it.

“It is practical as when it is full cleaners know they have to go and empty it, whereas before they may have had to check the bins every two hours in a busy place like an airport.

“This will save money for a business, as even though a bin costs €295 a month to hire, it means they will save money on cleaners’ wages. Above all it is environmental.”

Green Creative was founded in 2010 by young engineers, Lucile Noury and Rémi Gomez who were interested in processing rubbish. They are now joined by 23 other employees.

The company has so far sold 70 of the R3D3 bins, half in France and half in Switzerland. Ms Clémençon said: “This is just the beginning as we have only just gone into production. The final version was just completed at the end of 2017.”

Another of their products, called Flexidry is a machine that recovers organic contents from food packaging so both contents and packaging can be composted or recycled.

The machine perforates the packs then squashes them so the organic contents drain into a collector to be turned into compost or animal feed or used for bio-gas production.

It has been bought by council dechetteries, recycling sites and other businesses and has won praise as it gives clean organic waste with no plastic contaminant while still being economical and using very little energy and water.

Green Creative is looking for UK and other European distributors for the products but is also eyeing markets in Japan, South Korea and the US – and all the time looking for skilled workers in fabrication.