INDIA. In its latest sustainability initiative, Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) has installed Reverse Vending Machines (RVM) to encourage passengers and the airport community to recycle plastic bottles.
In the first phase of the project, three RVMs have been installed at Terminal 2 and three more will be installed across T1 in the second phase.
Each machine has the capacity to accept and compress 450 plastic bottles per hour. They can compress about 70% of the waste so that it can be easily transported to recyclers, thus saving key resources, emissions and costs liable for transportation and logistics.
The machines deploy interactive 16-inch touch screens, which guide users inserting plastic bottles to receive reward coupons from Zingbus, Myntra, Swiggy and others as incentives. They are delivered via SMS to remove the need for paper in the process.
CSMIA has been a single-use plastic-free airport since 2019, when it initiated a plastic ban in all its logistics and operations including retail, food & beverage and partner airlines processes.