Recycling pays off at Droppie, literally. Founder Marcel Smits devised a formula where you hand in deposits and more through a proprietary store concept, and get the money right on your phone. No receipt to lose, no queuing at the supermarket. Through the Droppie app and a link to Tikkie, the amount is directly on it.
The big difference from regular deposit machines is in the bulk machine. You can turn in up to two hundred plastic bottles and cans at a time, all at once. Large bottles over a liter yield 25 cents each, small bottles and cans 15 cents. That sounds like single quarters, but those who deliver regularly notice that it adds up. Councilwoman Hester van Buren, responsible for waste in the municipality, officially opened the bulk machine, also sticking her neck out officially for the concept. In addition to the municipality, Droppie also cooperates with Deposit Money Netherlands.
The three branches are deliberately scattered throughout the city. In the Westerpark neighborhood, there is a store on Van Limburg Stirumplein, a neighborhood where the mix of young families and permanent residents fits the idea well. The branch on Kattenburgerstraat serves the Eastern Docklands area, and in the Indische Buurt, Droppie is on Javastraat. Three very different neighborhoods, but the approach is the same everywhere: an accessible store, a central machine as an eye-catcher, and an app that handles the rest.
Those who turn in regularly keep track in the app of what they brought and what was returned.
The Droopy app handles disbursement and account management. Those who regularly drop in keep track in the app of what they have brought in and what has been returned. Practical, and it also makes it insightful. With three locations across the city, a machine that does the job quickly and instant payout via your phone, the barrier to recycling has become a lot lower. Marcel Smits is on to something with that, and the municipality is behind it.