The Sydney-based, RecycleSmart startup is celebrating its 3rd anniversary this month with impressive milestones, and a big ambition for the coming years.
More often than not, we hear stories about successful startups beginning in a garage. RecycleSmart’s iconic service, the Power Pickup, started just three years ago… on a Vespa!
Around 1,000 days later, RecycleSmart has made recycling easy for 15 councils around Sydney and beyond, with their first interstate council, the City of West Torrens in South Australia.
“We are incredibly proud to offer our on-demand collection service of tricky-to-recycle items to over 1.5 million residents, in just 3 years. We are grateful for our council partners who have made this footprint possible: we are having an impact everyday not only in terms of volume diverted from landfill, but also in terms of education. Our community truly enjoys learning how to become better recyclers” says Giorgio Baracchi, CEO and Co-Founder of RecycleSmart.
Numbers speak for themselves: with a float of now over 50 locally contracted drivers, the “Uber for Waste ” has now performed over 75,000 Power Pickups. They have diverted over 300,000 kilograms of valuable resources from landfill, the equivalent of 24,000 kerbside bins! The four main streams RecycleSmart collects are soft plastics, e-waste, textiles. They also collect what they call “misfits”, a long list of mix & match items such as batteries, light bulbs, aluminium coffee capsules, polystyrene, toys, books, etc. Residents then leave their pink RecycleSmart bags at their doorstep, a local friendly driver collects them and drops them off to be recycled.
Where to from there? “We are currently working on expanding our service nationally, with conversations happening in many councils in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia. We are not going to stop there. Our ambition is to be the one-stop-solution for councils and residents when it comes to recycling the tricky items. We are looking at expanding our service beyond our existing list”, Baracchi further explains. In this spirit, the startup is trialling a new service in Randwick Council, which they call the “clunky cardboard” collection. They are targeting households who received a big piece of equipment in a big cardboard box, very hard to fit in the kerbside bin.
“The rise of e-commerce and the delivery of big items in big cardboard boxes is becoming an increasingly important pain point for councils, consumers and brands. We are exploring a way to solve this, leveraging our technology and know-how” continues Baracchi.
RecycleSmart is celebrating their third birthday by painting the town pink!\
You might have seen them at the Eco-Living festival organised by Randwick city council last weekend, where thousands of people were looking for easy sustainable hacks in their everyday life.
They also have just received the Tech for Good Awards in the sustainability category. This award, organised by Fishburner and Investment NSW, sponsored by BDO, recognises startups leveraging technology to solve critical planetary problems.
And going into October, Baracchi will be a guest speaker at the very anticipated Waste Expo Australia in Melbourne.
“The time is now. We can’t delay action any further. Every step counts and recycling is a key pillar of the circular economy. It allows us to truly reduce the amount of virgin material we extract from our Planet and the carbon emissions associated with it. Knowing we are having a tangible positive impact is what drives us to do more, everyday” concludes Giorgio Baracchi.