On Tuesday the 14th of June the 3rd version #maketheturtlesmile campaign was closed.
81,819 recyclables collected
This is a big increase in community engagement.
In the campaign that run for 4 months, 81,819 recyclables were collected by the community, and 28,241 litter items were geotagged with the use of the Litterati App and cleaned from the environment.
The principle of the campaign is that participants receive a stamp for every 25 recyclables that they bring to Green Phenix at Paviljoen Zeelandia. With these stamps, they can save for really cool prizes that were made available by businesses based in Curaçao that like to contribute to a cleaner island. Without these prizes, the campaign would not have been so successful.
Many thanks go out to all the sponsors:
Lionsdive, Morena Resort, Bay West, Flipside Skate park, Mermaid Boat Trips, Miss Ann Boat Trips, Maritiem Museum, Van der Tweel Supermarket, Restaurant Rozendeals, Fort Nassau, Mambo Beach Boulevard, Awesome, Cinemarkx, Carlos Moreno, Seaquarium, Dushi Straws, D-bottle, Winefactory.
Increased engagement
Originally the campaign was planned for 3 months, but because of the positive reactions, the campaign was extended for an extra month. In the first campaign 30,573 recyclables and in the second 33,280 recyclables were collected. So there is definitely an increase in community engagement, with the current result of 81,819 recyclables collected and 28,241 litter items cleaned and geotagged. Because there are many requests to continue with incentivizing recycling, we’ll be evaluating the possibilities to do so.
Incentives work – call for a deposit system
The increase in community engagement shows that incentives motivate people to behave environmentally friendly. When positive behavior is rewarded, the threshold for the extra effort to do the right thing is reduced. Ideally, a deposit system would be instated, because a measure like this will clean up our island almost immediately. This will reduce costs for cleaning, and relieve the numerous NGOs and initiatives that are working tirelessly to keep our island clean, and it is better for the environment as well as human health.
