A collaboration between Valpak and the Bower recycling rewards app is hoped to drive recycling and brand benefits.
The award-winning Bower app educates and rewards consumers for recycling packaging items, while also helping brands to reach sustainability goals, strengthen their brand, and gain insights into recycling and purchase habits.
It is set to link to Valpak’s recycle more website, whilst brands signed up to Valpak’s compliance service will receive free integration for 50 products, as well as being able to add product recycling instruction, packshots that show up when consumers scan other products, and brand coupons.
When consumers scan items, they receive instructions on how to recycle, and the option to redeem a range of rewards – from cash and charity donations to product coupons. Valpack said participating brands will access to rich data metrics such as carbon savings and consumer behaviour patterns.
Brands are also able to link directly to their consumers through brand visibility every time their product is recycled, as well as offering opportunities such asconsumer coupons, recycling challenges, competitions or enabling users to plant a tree.
Steve Gough, CEO at Valpak, said, “Bower ticks a range of boxes for business. As well as meeting the demands of Plastic Packaging Tax by driving greater levels of recycled plastic into the system, brands gain access to valuable insights and a direct way to promote products to customers. With over 58 million items recycled through the app already, Valpak is keen to bring Bower to our customers as it expands into the UK. It’s another demonstration of Reconomy Group’s drive to enable the circular economy through technology and partnerships.”
Louise Nygaard Rønne, head of business development at Bower, added, “The app is designed to be a playful way to drive real change. The onus is increasingly on brands to do the right thing, but we also need to rely on consumers to get it right. Reaching packaging circularity is like any other ecosystem – we depend on each other and need everyone to join the movement, to work in partnership to succeed.”
