Droppie wants recycling to feel effortless — and worth it

There's a particular kind of frustration that only comes from stepping over the same piece of litter every day. For Stef Traa, that frustration sat right at the corners of many Amsterdam streets — trash on the pavement,  again and again, in a city that prides itself on being clean. "This still happens here, even though we really take care of cleaning our streets," he says. Ironically, Droppie’s founder tunes in for the interview, showing how yet another pile of litter sits outside of his office.

Droppie is striving to break this habit. The startup operates a network of recycling points where items such as textiles, small electronics, frying fats and oils, and plastic packaging can be dropped off. Users can download Dropppie’s app on their phone and, by logging in at the collection point’s drop-off machine, receive a payment which can be either cashed out or donated. 

The network of stores, now present in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht, is set to expand amid a €4.2 million financing round that the company closed in June. The plan is to grow from 13 to 70 locations across the country, expanding beyond the four biggest Dutch cities. 

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Making recycling fun and effortless 

At the core of each recycling point is the Dropbot. This is the machine where materials are dropped off. The system identifies which item or material one is handing in and what stream it belongs to, whether it is textile, e-waste, plastic packaging, or drink cartons. Using AI-powered image recognition technology, the robot recognizes, weighs, and digitizes material, displaying the corresponding reward in the app. “That makes the impact tangible,” underlines Traa. 

According to the founder, there are three main reasons people do not dispose of their waste correctly: a lack of knowledge, a lack of nearby recycling points for different kinds of waste, and a lack of reward. 

In addition to electronics, plastic packaging, and textiles, the company also handles frying fat and oil, ink cartridges, coffee cups, pencils, cork, and tennis balls. At their stores, users can also dispose of cans and bottles as part of the Dutch deposit scheme. 

“Getting people enthusiastic about circularity and recycling isn’t about constantly educating them, but also about making this step fun and easy,” the CEO says. “We attract families, enthusiasts, but also users who need to get rid of large volumes of waste quickly and effortlessly.”

Why separating well matters 

A key focus of Droppie, since the very beginning, has been to create as pure waste streams as possible. Crucially, ensuring minimal contamination means the materials can be recycled more easily. 

The cities Droppie currently operates in manage their waste through post-separation. Under this procedure, PMD (Plastic, Metal, and Drinking cartons) are extracted from residual waste at the waste management facility. While this system offers a great deal of convenience for users, it also leads to a high rate of material contamination, meaning the waste stream is mostly downcycled. A food container can’t become a food container anymore, but a product of a lesser quality. 

An analysis conducted by Wageningen University & Research found that Droppie’s packaging waste stream — including food containers and plastic bottles that are not accepted in the national deposit system — had less than 1% contamination. 

Bad recycling means losing resources. Traa mentions gold as an example of a material that can’t be fully recovered from waste streams. Natural resources are not infinite, so we can't afford to keep losing materials that are already in use.

Droppie's recycling wall and the Dropbot. - © Droppie

‘Just do it’

The willingness to improve waste streams was at the core of the first conversations between Traa and Natascha Hermsen, the other co-founder, two and a half years ago. Droppie was then founded and opened its first location in Amsterdam.

“Timing proved crucial for us. We opened our first store to see how things would go, knowing that there was a trend among consumers toward circular buying behavior. We reached out to retailers, and they also wanted to improve waste collection but were somehow stuck in their internal processes,” explains Traa. 

Droppie established a business model that relies on multiple revenue streams. The company gets paid for collecting waste, and gets a share from the Dutch producer responsibility organizations – such as WeCycle and Statiegeld. In addition, brand collaborations, such as one with telecom companies VodafoneZiggo and KPN to collect used internet routers, also support the company. The stores themselves, where users can also drop off or collect Vinted parcels, generate further yields.  

In hindsight, the founder emphasizes that part of Droppie’s success lies in being the first to act. “I like that famous slogan ‘Just do it,’” he adds. 

Involving people is the key

Among the lessons learned over these three years, Traa underlines that people are eager to recycle properly, as long as the barriers to doing so are lowered. Ultimately, achieving the goal of a fully circular economy by 2050 can’t happen without engaging with those who produce waste — but who are also a big part of the solution. 

In these years, Droppie noticed, by reading its data, the presence of so-called “professional collectors,” users who come to one of the stores a few times a week with large volumes of waste, particularly deposit items such as bottles and cans. Droppie recycling points feature bulk-can and bottle-deposit machines that process up to 100 items per minute. 

Traa has a long list of waste streams he would like to handle. Some of them are in the pipeline, as well as further collaborations to simplify the collection and reuse of many of our daily items. “What matters is showing people there's real value in the products we collect. That's the goal, and having some fun along the way,” he wraps up.