The Recycling Line completed one year on 27 October and in 2022 alone it has already received more than 28,000 contacts.

On its anniversary, the Recycling Line received its first award for "Recognition of Practices in Social Responsibility and Sustainability".

It started slowly, providing support and clarification to citizens in the interior of the country and, little by little, the service was extended to EGF's 11 concessionaires. It aims to be a recycling 112: it is an ambitious EGF project that seeks to give answers and solutions to citizens regarding their doubts about recycling, which translate into requests for information, suggestions and complaints.

There are already twelve operators responding to citizens from the North to the South of the country, a specialised team responding to the requests for help and information that arrive looking for a solution. The contacts come in by email, telephone and website and the way they are dealt with and solved is based on a customised platform that implies the operation of selective collection and treatment units and waste valorisation.

The innovation is in the processes and in the expeditious manner in which 12 companies articulate themselves to respond to a need with few national solutions - if someone has waste to deliver and doesn't know where; what the procedures are; doubts about recycling; and a whole set of questions that the Recycling Line can help solve. A chatbot will be available very soon and, in 2023, links between platforms that will allow greater interaction with waste collection teams whenever there is a problem on the ground to be solved.

The aim of the Recycling Line is to provide reliable and concrete answers and solutions to citizens about the waste they have to recover. Based on this objective, there are several advantages associated to this service, starting with the fact that there is a greater capacity to respond to the growing demand from citizens, since more and more people are motivated to adopt appropriate environmental behaviours, lacking a simple and convenient contact channel that could help them. The standardization of contact channels also allows the creation of synergies, greater consistency of messages (and consequent reduction of errors) and greater efficiency in responses. In short, this service allows having a single number, a single website and more efficient responses.

The service began on 27 October 2021. The adhesion to the Recycling Line has been growing and the evolution by the teams follows the needs that are being identified in this journey, allowing a continuous and increasingly challenging evolution. In 2022, more than 28,000 contacts have already been received.

This is a contact channel that citizens can call free of charge, with the certainty that at the other end there is an operator ready to help solve the problem at hand. And this is how this service is certainly a contribution towards more and better recycling.

EGF is the company promoting this initiative, which is carried out in partnership with its 11 concessionaires. Together, the company and its concessionaires treat and recover 60% of the urban waste in Portugal. Although it does not provide waste collection and recovery services to the whole country, the Recycling Line answers and directs all questions addressed to the respective entities (municipalities, parish councils or other waste treatment and recovery systems). The aim is to make life easier for citizens and to guide them in their doubts and questions.

About the Award for Recognition of Practices in Social Responsibility and Sustainability.

Promoted by APEE since 2015, the award distinguishes the implementation of good governance policies and models in public and private sector organisations, both profit and non-profit, that create value for their stakeholders and actively contribute to sustainable development.

On 27 October, the Recycling Line received the award "Recognition of Practices in Social Responsibility and Sustainability", an initiative of the Portuguese Association for Business Ethics (APEE) and the Global Compact Network Portugal.

Recycling Line was distinguished with an Honourable Mention, in the category of Sustainable Development Goal 11 (ODS), established by the United Nations until 2030: Sustainable Cities and Communities.

Recognition of Practices in Social Responsibility and Sustainability

AXIS II - SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

ODS 11- SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES

Honourable Mention

Practice: Recycling Line