Oman Environmental Services Holding Company (be’ah), the nation’s solid waste management entity, says it will oversee the roll-out of at least 25 reverse vending machines (RVMs) at key locations across Muscat Governorate this year – part of a pilot to weigh the feasibility of a broader deployment.

In all, 50 such machines are planned for installation across the capital city, the government-owned company noted. To this end, it has signed agreements with a number of corporate partners who “share the same sustainability objectives”, it stated.

Targeted primarily at PET waste, the machines will serve as kiosks for people to dispose of empty PET bottles.

Non-PET bottles and other items will be rejected by the machines, which are equipped with sensors to accept only PET containers.

As an incentive-driven scheme to encourage sustainable recycling practices, the RVMs will offer points that can be converted into rewards from be’ah’s partners in the venture.

PET bottles collected from the machines will be periodically sent for recycling as part of a wider effort to divert plastic waste currently ending up in landfills into the circular economy. As much as a fifth of all municipal waste is made up of plastic, with PET bottles accounting for a substantial portion of this volume, says be’ah.

Data collected from the pilot project will be analysed to study its effectiveness and aid similar recycling initiatives in the future, be’ah added.