GreenPak will be giving away €100 every day as part of a new Crush and Win campaign aimed at incentivising recycling of plastic bottles and containers.

Addressing a joint press conference with Environment Minister Jose Herrera at the National Aquarium in Qawra, GreenPak CEO Mario Schembri said the primary objective of the Crush and Win campaign was to target littering and reduce the amount of plastic irresponsibly discarded in our environment and oceans.

Anyone can take part in the campaign simply by writing their telephone number on a plastic container they find outdoors or have at home, crushing it, and disposing of the item in one of GreenPak’s blue recycling bins which can be found at various locations around Malta.

Every day, GreenPak will select one of these discarded bottles or containers and inform the winner that they can collect €100 in cash. The campaign will run for a year.

Photo: Pinkish Ltd

According to the most recent figures, almost 60,000 tonnes of packaging material comes onto the local market on an annual basis and 32 per cent of plastic containers are recycled. It is not known how much plastic waste ends up in the Mediterranean, but studies are currently underway.

GreenPak CEO Mario Schembri said: “We opted to hold this press conference at the National Aquarium specifically to highlight the threat of litter to our environment and to the marine life in the sea around us.

“While plastic packaging is essential for the preservation of our food and drink, it is being misused. We have invested large amounts of money in facilitating recycling for the public and participation in these initiatives has increased, but we collectively need to step up the anti-littering effort. The Crush and Win campaign is one way of doing this.

“We, of course, support any initiative that seeks to recover as much plastic bottles as possible. But we all need to understand that plastic bottles are not limited to beverages only and that the use of plastics goes far beyond just bottles. It takes a collective effort on behalf of everyone to increase recycling in a meaningful way.”

Crush and Win follows on from the Crush campaign launched by GreenPak earlier this year, in which some of Malta's best known personalities took part in a fun video aimed at encouraging the public to crush and recycle plastic bottles.