Eco-solution: citizens of Vinnytsia can swap their garbage for trees

Residents of Vinnytsia can swap waste paper, scrap metal, plastic, and glass bottles for linden, sakura, or magnolia seedlings.

To do this, one needs to download the Eco-service application to their mobile phone.

What is the problem?

Garbage…The eternal problem of humanity. Garbage is a problem in Europe. It is a problem in Ukraine. Garbage has become a problem for every Ukrainian community.

Today, Ukraine has accumulated about 54 million cubic meters of waste. At the same time, only 6% of all household waste is subject to recycling.

What is the solution?

Volunteers from Vinnytsia created an application where residents can swap waste paper, scrap metal, plastic, and glass bottles for linden, sakura, or magnolia seedlings.

The main goal of the project is to encourage people to sort garbage. Everyone can help restore Ukraine's ecology by planting a tree.

"We are trying to encourage people to sort their garbage. The application has step-by-step instructions on what is recyclable and what is not. It also indicates what raw materials we accept. It must be sorted. Sometimes people call and ask to collect their ordinary garbage. We don't accept it," Olga Malinovska, the volunteer, said.

How does it work?

"When a person has collected 30 kilograms of recyclables, he can call an eco-mobile for free, which will come and pick up the junk. For this, the user is awarded eco-points. We also call them "karma points", which are displayed in the application," the volunteer said.

Eco-points can then be exchanged for tree seedlings. For example, a linden is conventionally worth 100 hryvnias, and the cost of magnolia is 2,500-3,000 thousand hryvnias. The application must have the same number of "karma points"

"A person can order saplings anywhere. We just pay the bill. Where to plant a tree – the users of the application also decide for themselves. The main thing is that people do not throw away rubbish but send it for recycling," the developers added.

Sorting garbage has already become a kind of challenge among Vinnytsia residents. Instead of the declared two hundred, a citizen handed in almost 400 kilograms of recyclables. The resident of the high-rise building collected 83 kilograms of glass, cardboard, and aluminum. Now he plans to involve the whole house in sorting.

Currently, programs for planting trees and reducing deforestation are priorities for many states. The application is available in the App Store and Play market.

Forests provide jobs for more than 1.6 billion people, absorb harmful carbon from the atmosphere, and are key ingredients in 25% of all medicines. Even aspirin comes from tree bark.