Imagine this: free parking if you bring your empty plastic bottles – it’s a classic win-win situation. Parking operator CitiPark is carrying out this experiment at its site in Leeds, England, throughout October, with plans to extend the program beyond that if it proves a success.
The initiative is meant to encourage drivers to be more environmentally responsible by using free parking as incentive, The Sun points out. Each plastic bottle is worth 20p, which means drivers have to bring 30 of them to get a free hour of parking. They will need to really deliver if they want to claim an entire day’s worth of parking in plastic bottles.
Speaking of which, there is no limit to the number of bottles that can be brought in. The only conditions of the campaign stipulate that bottles must be at least 500 ml, and that drivers must hand them over to a parking attendant in order to be able to claim the discount voucher.
After the bottles are collected, they are recycled and turned into stuff like clothes, toys or furniture, through a third-party partnership.
“This scheme is all about helping the environment, which is something our company takes quite seriously,” parking attendant Chris Jones says. “Drivers just need to come to the customer services desk with their bottles and we'll give them a discount on their ticket.”
“They can bring as many as they like but they do have to be at least 500 ml,” Jones adds. “People have really been buying into the idea and we've had lots of customers turning up with bottles to exchange. Hopefully this kind of thing could be introduced on a longer term basis.”
The project is scheduled to run throughout the current month, but CitiPark is hoping it will be successful enough to warrant extending it.
Speaking of which, there is no limit to the number of bottles that can be brought in. The only conditions of the campaign stipulate that bottles must be at least 500 ml, and that drivers must hand them over to a parking attendant in order to be able to claim the discount voucher.
After the bottles are collected, they are recycled and turned into stuff like clothes, toys or furniture, through a third-party partnership.
“This scheme is all about helping the environment, which is something our company takes quite seriously,” parking attendant Chris Jones says. “Drivers just need to come to the customer services desk with their bottles and we'll give them a discount on their ticket.”
“They can bring as many as they like but they do have to be at least 500 ml,” Jones adds. “People have really been buying into the idea and we've had lots of customers turning up with bottles to exchange. Hopefully this kind of thing could be introduced on a longer term basis.”
The project is scheduled to run throughout the current month, but CitiPark is hoping it will be successful enough to warrant extending it.