Based upon the early success of our pilot schools, we have been getting some good interest from various parties wanting to know more about how we are bringing innovation to the container deposit scheme in NSW; with hopefully other states and many more schools to follow. Earlier this week we were mentioned in the NSW Parliament where Victor Dominello gave a very comprehensive speech about how Charopy "aims to build positive, sustainable habits early and has been shown to increase kids' tendency to recycle."
This was following the Minister coming out to see Charopy in action at one of the schools in his electorate of Ryde. I was impressed with the way he really took time to understand the technology, even to the point of downloading an NFC reader app onto his own phone so he could experience the way a parent checks the balance on their child's wristband and also to experience some of the gamification elements we have built within Charopy to increase the fun and engagement levels for kids when it comes to learning about sustainability. Victor also put up some great posts on his various social media channels.
A few weeks before that we spent the morning with the Channel Nine News crew who filmed a nice light-hearted segment at Eastwood Public School that illustrated really well the process of children returning their eligible single use drink containers for recycling, earning the 10c onto their wristbands, and then spending that money in the canteen. If you want to understand the typical way Charopy works within a primary school in only two minutes, then click the link above as reporter Mike Dalton did a great job explaining the process, adding in his own special brand of humour along the way. I use the phrase typical way as even for schools without a canteen, or schools who want to use Charopy for fundraising, there are different ways the technology can be implemented at a school besides our most common model.
In the past month we have also had students from the Northern Beaches make a video that was shown to other schools visiting Taronga Zoo. It showed how they are using Charopy to drive increased recycling activity and sustainability awareness among their fellow students. There clearly are more people, companies and government departments I can't mention here, and whilst it is always heartwarming to see children at existing schools really embrace recycling, it is also very good to hear from new people who want to learn more about how they might implement Charopy at their school, or companies looking to work with us in some way. We are always very open to hearing from people wanting to know more about our unique approach to school recycling programs, as we have some very exciting plans and new technical developments in the pipeline; with recycling such a hot topic at the moment, there is still plenty of room for further innovation.
