E.Leclerc Réunion is establishing seven b in its shopping centers:bot, the collection machine, sorting and recycling of connected plastic bottles, developed by the French start-up GreenBig, which also reinvents the instructions.
In February 2021, interviewed by Leader Réunion, Benoît Paget, co-founder and CEO of Green Big, announced that it was in contact with several Reunionese partners interested in setting up on the island.:bot, already in place in several hundred supermarkets in mainland France. This is done today at the initiative of the E.Leclerc Réunion Movement which decided to call on Green Cycle companies, partner of the group in this initiative, et Green Big, designer and manufacturer of the b:bot. E.Leclerc equips its seven shopping centers with this innovative machine. The device allows consumers to do double duty : they recycle their empty plastic bottles thanks to b:bot that crushes them and reverses them, in exchange, a voucher in the amount of one euro cent per bottle.
Create an eco-responsible reflex among consumers
Designed and manufactured in France, in Dieppe, day b:bot is both a device and a digital ecosystem that collects, crushes and sorts plastic bottles into flakes ready for recycling. In other words, the straws collected will be used to make new bottles. Its concept is based on that of the deposit : for each bottle deposited, the consumer receives 1 to 2 cents which he can recover in a voucher, or donate it to an association. “The voucher is fair compensation for the recovery of plastic bottles. It is a way of reintegrating consumers into the production process in a circular economy logic” explains Benoit Paget, co-founder of Green Big. La b:bot has a storage capacity of 3,000 bottles in less than one square meter. It is monitored remotely. An alert is sent at 80% of filling to order the recovery of the collected content.
The CSR approach of the E.Leclerc Réunion Movement
With the b:bot, the ambition to collect 512 tonnes of plastic each year. “Through the installation of collectors b:bot, our ambition is to act quickly and concretely so that the plastic produced and imported into Reunion Island is sorted and can be recycled. At term, it is the structuring of a sustainable recycling and recovery sector that we wish to work with all private and public partners” warns Pascal Thiaw Kine, CEO of Mouvement E. Leclerc Réunion. E.Leclerc Réunion has already committed to removing plastic bags from these stores and replacing them with burlap bags.. He also joined forces with a coalition of large Reunion companies to found the Plastik’Akoz association., whose objective is to initiate and support projects aimed at combating the proliferation of plastic in Reunion Island.
