Greenopolis is a New Motivation to Recycle

Growing up in NY, I always had to pay a $0.05 deposit on soda to promote recycling. Once a month we would bring a large garbage bag of cans and bottles to the supermarket and put them in the machine to get our money back. Actually, if I'm being perfectly honest my mother paid but I kept the refund.

In PA, we just throw our bottles and cans in the recycling bin next to the trashcan. However, I think I might start bring them to the store again. I saw a new machine outside Shoprite yesterday and of course my curious nature led me to explore.

Greenopolis gives you points for recycling. Each bottle or can is worth 5 points. When you reach a minimum of 100 points, you can begin redeeming for prizes. The prizes range and they will actually differ based on your location because they are from local businesses. You can also save up your points because for around 500,000 points you can get a free HP computer. I think the local deals for around 100 points are a better deal. Lastly, you can donate your points to charity. For charity donations, each point is worth $0.01.

The coolest part is that the brand of bottle doesn't matter. I've deposited both regular brand soda bottles and store brand water bottles. The machine scans the barcode to determine what material you are recycling and then points left or right depending on which door you should drop the bottle/can through.

You can register online for a free account, but make sure you take a free reward card keychain from the machine and register it to make redeeming easier.  Otherwise, you will always have to save your receipt and enter the code online when you get home.  By scanning your card's barcode first, it  automatically adds the recycling to your account. This is also beneficial because the machine seems to always be out of paper for the receipt and no paper is better for the environment anyway.

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored. I personally saw this machine and wanted to share it with all of you. If someone from Greenopolis would like to sponsor a future giveaway on Making Cents of It to promote recycling, please email Making Cents of It.