SEOUL DESIGN AWARD

Recycling is often perceived as inconvenient and tedious, resulting in low participation in daily life. The Today’s Recycling project emerged to bridge this gap by redefining the recycling experience itself. At its core is the combination of an AI-powered collection robot and a rewards app. It is designed so that users intuitively learn proper sorting methods through the robot while earning points and rewards via the app. This turns drudgery of waste recycling into an enjoyable and rewarding habit.

Currently, the platform has 130,000 members, with 18,000 monthly active users. More than 1,200 robots nationwide facilitate about 350,000 transactions per month, recovering roughly 218 tons of resources. This goes beyond individual action to drive social change. Over 120 municipalities and companies participate as partners, using the monthly data and robot management services to inform their ESG strategies and urban environmental policies. The objective data collected in the process enables local governments to accurately assess recycling trends and design data-driven policies. At the same time, high-quality recycled materials reduce the demand for virgin resources and lower carbon emissions.

The project demonstrates how enjoyable individual actions can spread as a social culture and become a tangible force for environmental protection. Moreover, the system can be localized to different languages and categories, making it adaptable for cities worldwide. If developed into a global resource-circulation platform powered by real-time data, Today’s Recycling has the potential to become a key infrastructure of future smart cities.