King’s Cross is home to one of the capital’s first “reverse vending machines,” where the public can get vouchers for recycling their plastic bottles and tin cans.
Under the scheme, any bottle put into the machine at the West Handyside Canopy, near Granary Square, will result in a 10 per cent voucher for the nearest Leon restaurant.
The pilot will operate for six months, with results then judged to see if more can be rolled out across London and the UK.
Richard Kirkham, Veolia’s chief technology and innovation officer said: “A UK-wide deposit return scheme is imperative if we want to round up the millions of stray plastic bottles and cans we as a country are not recycling.
“Veolia will collect and process the machine’s contents, ultimately transporting the bottles and cans to be recycled into new products,” he said.
In its first few days, 350 bottles were returned using the machine.
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