Machines Reward Campus for Recycling

When students return to classes at Cal Poly Pomona in the fall, they'll be working toward their goal of recycling 20,000 cans and bottles by December. At the same time, they'll receive discounts and coupons for their efforts.

For each beverage container that they recycle in the three dream machines on campus, they'll earn a point, which equals the 1 cent they would normally receive at recycling centers. Based on how many points they have, they'll earn discounts at campus stores and Greenopolis.com.

Cal Poly Pomona is the first university to install the machines as part of PepsiCo and Waste Management's Dream Machine initiative. College students almost always use some kind of electronic media, but recycling is not as exciting to many of them, said Brett Roth, director of Foundation Dining Service at the university.

"I saw these machines in front of Whole Foods up in the Pasadena area," he said. "They have a touch screen on them and they’re very high tech, and I thought, 'The students would love these.'”

He spent a year working with PepsiCo to bring the machines to campus, and in the middle of the spring quarter, had two dream machines installed in the Bronco Student Center and Campus Center Marketplace. Before school starts, a third machine will be available in a new cafe.

Through the Dream Machine initiative, the two companies hope to increase the U.S. beverage container recycling rate from 34 percent to 50 percent by 2018.

While they're increasing the recycling rate, they'll also be increasing support for disabled veterans. For each recycled bottle or can deposited in more than 200 machines across the country, PepsiCo will make a donation to the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities, a national Syracuse University program that gives post-9/11 veterans entrepreneurial training at no charge. 

Through a wireless Internet connection, the machines help users learn about recycling, earn points and track how much they recycle. When people walk up to the big blue machine, they'll enter their name and other basic identification information on the touch screen.

Then they'll receive a rewards card. If they have cans to recycle, they'll scan their card, scan each can's barcode and deposit it into the machine. The machines run 24/7, but will shut down once they're full. All three machines can immediately be checked and emptied throughout the day.

The first machine filled up overnight, and the entire campus has jumped on board with the new program.

“I just thought it would help promote recycling in a kind of fun, rewarding way," he said.