b:bot Give your plastic bottles a second life

Did you know that every year 16 billion plastic bottles are thrown away worldwide!

That's 400,000 tonnes of PET thrown away every year. A huge potential.

Less than half of the plastic bottles are collected in Belgium and less than half of the transparent PET bottles are recycled into bottles.

To help increase the collection of PET bottles and the rate of recycling into bottles, B:Bot, distributed in the Benelux and Canary Islands by Metabolism, digitises and makes recycling profitable to boost the circular economy of plastic (PET) bottles.

B:Bot is the machine that gives a second life to plastic (PET) bottles. A global solution, it can be integrated anywhere, including in urban areas.

1. The user deposits his PET plastic bottle (all water and juice bottles)
2. The bottle is analysed by barcode reader and sensors that check its size, weight and composition.
3. The bottle is accepted and sorted: on the one hand the colourless bottles that will become bottles again and on the other the coloured bottles.
4. If the bottle is rejected, a message is displayed on the screen to explain why (too heavy/to be emptied, unknown bottle, bottle not accepted-milk bottle)
5. It is then turned into flakes ready for recycling. The user sees these flakes fall into the bins.
6. For each accepted bottle, the user accumulates points or cents. He can choose on the touch screen to save them on his fidelity card, print his tick and, or make a donation to an association.

A virtuous circle economically and ecologically.

Reduction of costs by 3

Thanks to a patented technology that de-crushes the bottles at source, b:bot has a storage capacity of 3500 bottles in less than 1m2: that's less emptying, handling, transport and logistics.

A pre-processed product sold at three times the price

b:bot sorts, separates and transforms the bottles into a product ready for recycling called flake: it sells for three times more per tonne than a bottle that leaves a sorting centre.

More bottles collected

b:bot makes sense and encourages sorting: it explains the recycling process, rewards, offers to make a donation and integrates the user into a community of sorters.

b:bot favours local anchoring and is easily integrated into existing organisations: local authorities, reverse logistics, etc. For example, the location of the collection points makes it possible to implement both operational partnerships that promote local employment and charitable partnerships that benefit associations.

In the same way, the logistics set up around b:bot encourage the creation of local recycling loops in short circuits.

b:bot also boosts local life: information, promotion of local shops, highlighting of services offered by towns and cities, etc.

A digital solution

Remote troubleshooting and management

b:bot is connected to a remote management platform.

Machine learning combined with remote monitoring reduces logistics and maintenance costs.

Thanks to its on-board intelligence, b:bot is able to recognise and identify new bottles on the market.

Interactive and incentivising

Interactive and connected, the user experience is extended by a mobile application. It integrates consumers into a community of citizen sorters and encourages them to collect points and track their sorting performance.

The user earns €0.01 to €0.02 for each bottle.