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Marseille: a local currency earned by collecting waste
In Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), wild money has appeared. These are recycled plastic parts that qualify for gifts in certain businesses. An alternative currency that can be earned by picking up trash.
(France 2)
These recycled plastic parts qualify for gifts in certain businesses. An alternative currency that can be earned by picking up trash.
These little pieces of recycled plastic are an alternative currency that allows, in Marseille, to consume locally. To glean them, you must, in exchange, collect waste.
In the streets of Marseille, nothing escapes the green brigades. This group of volunteers got up early to make the city a little cleaner, encouraged by the inhabitants. Result of the collection: nearly two kilos of waste collected in less than an hour, immediately rewarded with a few coins. “wild currency”. Workers will be able to spend them in partner businesses of the initiative.
These coins are minted in a laboratory workshop in Aix-en-Provence. It all starts with plastic caps collected from the beaches. For this, Louis uses a washing machine. Once clean, they are ground into chips and inserted into a machine called an injector. It will heat up to 230 degrees to melt the plastic.
Over the past two months, 500 pieces have been distributed, the equivalent of 300 kilos of waste collected in the Marseille city. Local currencies, “There are some all over France, we are even the country in Europe with the most of them”explains Valérie Heurtel, journalist present on the set of “13 Heures” on France 2.
