This is our traditional summer holidays announcement. Please note the dates below to plan your eco-taxi orders or visits to our garages.
❗️NON-WORKING DAYS: from August 1 to 14
⚡️On these days, garages and eco-taxi will NOT work, and we will not respond to any messages via direct messages, emails, or phone calls.
❗️❗️Garages will be closed: from August 1 to 21
Until the start of the holidays, we will be operating as usual.
We were waiting for this news as much as people who tried to give us electronic cigarettes before. We found a way to send them for recycling so…
Now we collect electronic cigarettes/vapes in all Garages and through Eco-taxi service.
All collected vapes will be transferred to the Wasteless association for further treatment and recycling.
All necessary changes have been made to our sorting guidelines. Please note that via Eco-taxi they should be handed over separately from other e-waste.
We still believe that electronic cigarettes are a very wasteful product and recommend limiting their consumption. But if you still have them, don’t throw them in the trash bin, recycle them with us!
Since the beginning of Eco-taxi services we have followed the principle of payment for address not person/household encouraging neighbours to collaborate and share the expenses. We are happy to see this rule in work with as many as 14 neighbours ordering together in one of the residential complexes. But there is also a downside.
The more people recycle at one address the more time our team spends and the more waste we collect. This decreases our capacity to make the necessary amount of orders per day to cover all the expenses.
❗️ From March 18 We introduce new Collective Tariff:
More than 5 households on 1 address: Basic tariff + 5GEL for each extra household.
✨ For example:
If you order an Eco-taxi with 2-3 neighbours, the price will not change for you.
If more than 4 neighbours would like to join the collection and ordering, each additional neighbour will need to add 5 GEL.
Even with this new rule ordering together makes the service more affordable for everyone 🤗
We would like to remind you that the basic tariff implies that waste is sorted according to our Guidelines and each waste type is stored separately. 💚
♻️ To order Eco-taxi please visit our website: eco-taxi.ge
Traditionally we start the New year with the results of the previous one. 2023 was full of events, achievements and challenges. Here are some numbers of Eco-taxi work & Garages work last year:
✨We passed an important milestone for us by collecting more than 100 tons of waste for recycling!
107,8 to be exact (not accounting e-waste and small fractions like corks, etc. 😉
In this amount were:
♻️ 30 tons of Plastic (with PET being about 85% of it)
♻️ 19,4 tons of Paper and Cardboard
♻️ 1,8 tons of Aluminum
♻️ 3,1 tons of Tin
Each of these numbers represent resources saved and provided for the recycling facilities to develop a circular economy.
For example, recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 trees, 24,5 cubic meters in the landfill and 2 barrels of oil (enough to drive almost 2000 km).
Our Eco-taxi client base continued to grow. We were happy to see more businesses joining responsible waste management practices and collaborating with us not only in waste collection but also in educational activities.
✨ In total, we picked up waste via Eco-taxi 2332 times.
❗️ The number of rides and amount of waste collected through our services in 2023 grew 1,5 times compared to the previous year.
Thanks to the support of Garage IT Company in April 2023 we opened our third Garage widening the geography of drop-off possibilities to Chughureti neighbourhood. 🫶🏻
⚡️ 17 128 people visited all our Garages during last year, some repeatedly, some just once or twice. This number is 4 times higher than in 2022! We think it is totally amazing and definitely the reason that we continue our work. 💚
🤗 All these visits were possible thanks to the support and dedication of our volunteer team that grew up to 70 people already! Together they did 1031 shifts totaling 1650,5 working hours!
As a recognition of our efforts and the importance of this project Eco-taxi by Parki ar minda (including Garages) received a prestigious international Energy Globe Award in sustainability. We were also nominated to the CSR Award organized by Global Compact Network in Georgia.
With all these great numbers and achievements we should also say that 2023 was tough on the recycling industry and we felt in full these struggles. For example, the local recycler of cardboard with whom we started working early in the year closed the factory after just a few months because they couldn’t compete with cheap imported paper products. In general, the prices for secondary materials were decreasing around the world which resulted in the reduction of income from waste sales. While residents of Tbilisi are more and more concerned with the situation with waste and are eager to recycle their waste, the economic situation in the recycling sector restricts the development not only of our project but the whole infrastructure in general.
However, we believe that these are temporary downfalls which will pass soon. We continue to work to offer the possibility to recycle the widest range of waste types and our goal to make it even more comfortable for you! 💚
We can finally recycle LED light bulbs in Tbilisi! 🎉
Wasteless Association working in the framework of the new law of EPR (extended producer responsibility) launched their retail collection of e-waste in most of the Elit Electronics stores. In two of them there is an option to collect LED light bulbs.
📍 All collection points with indication of what can be dropped off there were added to our Recycling Map:
https://cutt.ly/VRwDxYv .It has a wide geography, including Gori, Rustavi, Zugdidi, Telavi, Kutaisi, etc.
LED bulbs are accepted only here:
📍 Elit Electronics in East Point
📍 Elit Electronics in Tbilisi Centrali (Train station)
🤗 We also decided to start accepting LED light bulbs in all our Garages (only). You can bring them together with other waste. 🙂
❗Addresses and working hours of our collection points you can find on eco-taxi.ge.
❌ Please note: NO other light bulbs (incandescent or Edison) are accepted at this time for recycling.
All collected light bulbs will be transferred to Wasteless for further treatment.
With August fast approaching we would like to inform you that we will be on Summer Break🗓 From 1 to 14 of August.
During this period:
👉🏻 Our Garages will be closed
👉🏻 Eco-taxi service will not operate
👉🏻 We will not answer any direct messages.
We will be back on August 15 and will resume our work for even greater impact. 💚
✨ Another 3 months passed. We have had our hands full with recyclables during this period and want to share with you some results and highlights.
🎉 The biggest highlight of this period was the opening of the Third Parki ar minda Garage in Chughureti! It became possible thanks to the sponsorship support by the company Garage IT. It is located in the yard of Tamar Mepe 19 (entrance through the arch from Ninoshvili str.).
Together with our sponsor team we decided to add more visibility to our new collection point and make it easier to find it. This is how our collaboration with street artists of Tbilisi started. Tina Chertova created a mural near the Garage. In June we added a new mural by Tamoonz near our Garage in Saburtalo.
❗❗ In April – June we collected and sent for recycling a little more than 26 tons of waste. Including:
♻️ 7.9 tons of plastic of all types
♻️ 4,8 tons of different paper products
♻️ 240 kg of batteries
🤗 Our Garages were visited 4637 times!!
This is 40% more than in the first quarter of this year. It became possible thanks to our amazing team of volunteers who dedicate their time and effort to make effective waste separation practices more available for you.
🚚 During this period Eco-taxi team collected waste 600 times from our private and corporate clients. We thank everyone for choosing our service!
These months were not without challenges. The storage and logistics of waste have been the biggest one requiring a lot of our efforts to make sure that we provide reliable services to our clients/communities who use our collection points and have space where to put all the collected waste before sending it for recycling. This is a constant learning and adapting process as the amount of waste we collect grows.
Another challenge that we’ve faced was not enough people to work on Eco-taxi. So we recruited new team members and went through a multi-step training process to make sure that everyone who works with us shares our principles and knowledge about waste types and other necessary information.
We want to remind you that to
👉🏻 check the schedules and location of our collection points
👉🏻 see our sorting guidelines
👉🏻 check our Recycling map, etc.
please visit our webpage eco-taxi.ge. 💚
Help us collect data and test new technologies and get a free Eco-taxi arrival as a gift!
You may already know that we have the What I Recycle app. Its goal is to collect data on recyclable waste in Georgia, so that later, through machine learning mechanisms, it would be easier for people to determine by this or that package whether it can be recycled and where.
To test and improve the application, we invite you to take part in the Challenge.
Take 50 photos of different types of recyclables through the app, send us this data via the BuckitUp device (in garages or during the arrival of an eco-taxi), and get 1 Eco-taxi arrival for free!
How to take part?
1. Download the What I Recycle app. Available in Apple Store and Google Play
2. Take a photo of a recyclable sample through the app
3. Mark in the list of recyclables what type it belongs to
4. Collect at least 50 photos
5. Transfer photos to our buckitup device at any of our garages or at the time of Eco Taxi arrival using buckitup (how exactly?)
6. Fill out the eco-taxi order form on the eco-taxi.ge website and enter your unique identifier from the buckitup.app website in the promo code field.
For questions/suggestions about the application, please contact the designated telegram chat.
Hard to imagine how many egg cartons and toilet paper cores were rejected by us during 3 years of waste collection. Will happen no more!
✨ We are happy to announce that from March 20 we accept all products made from pulp cardboard:
♻️ egg cartons, cup holders, inserts in the boxes, cardboard trays from fruits and vegetables, etc.
and
♻️ toilet paper/paper towels cores and other cardboard tubes.
❗️ The only thing is that we will collect them separately in Garages and via Eco-taxi so please make sure they are not mixed with other paper products.
We already made necessary changes in our sorting guidelines
These waste types will be processed in collaboration with the@greengift1 project.
Here, with a bit of delay we are happy to share the 2022 Parki ar minda detailed progress report!
Download: 2022 Parki ar minda PROGRESS REPORT
From January 16 we are changing the Rules of paper sorting both in Eco-Taxi and in Garages.
We now separate by 3 types:
How to prepare all paper products for recycling with us:
From now on all the paper and cardboard that we collect will be recycled locally in Georgia! It will be used to produce paper napkins and other sanitary paper products.
See full sorting guidelines here.
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We sure were busy in 2022!
❗ Eco-Taxi service and total amount of collected waste grew 4 times in comparison to the 2021.
The number of visitors to our Garage in Vake grew 10 times since the start of the year resulting in the opening of a second Garage in Saburtalo in late November.
☝️ We did 105 rides covering 1526 addresses. More than 4000 people visited our collection points.
♻️ All in all during 2022 we collected around 70 tons of waste compared to only 16 during previous year.
Among them:
📌 10 tons of PET plastic. This waste type showed the biggest growth in volumes – 5 times more that in 2021
📌 7,5 tons of paper waste went for recycling
📌 1 ton of aluminum and 1 ton of tin
🔋 We also collected a lot of electronic waste and batteries. Last year we saw a significant increase in the amount of batteries that are brought to all collection points for recycling.
🤗💚 We are happy that more and more people and companies participate in separate waste collection and trust us with handling it. We are working hard to make sure your waste is treated properly and the best way possible.
💪 We will continue to work and create more opportunities for better waste practices in Georgia.
✨ All information about Eco-taxi services and Garages’ work you can find on our website: eco-taxi.ge.
On December 2 a video report on our Eco-taxi work was published on Facebook & Youtube of Radio Tavisupleba.
We are glad that our work is being covered more and more in the media. This is a sign of an important shift towards better waste management. We hope that through these publications more and more people will learn about the possibility and importance of separate waste collection and recycling and will join our movement!
We are happy to announce that the second collection point aka Garage was opened late November in Saburtalo.
Now residents of this area have better access to separate waste collection. In the first week already 80 people visited it and brought their waste for recycling!
The Garage in Saburtalo also works on a volunteer basis and according to a flexible schedule. Please be sure to check the working hours before coming.
Address: Alexander Kazbegi avenue, 34a
How to find the Garage: behind the building with a big clock in Nanti Garden. Access from Irine Skhirtladze street. Grey garage with Parki ar minda sign.
In September we moved to a steady “3 working days per week” schedule. It means that more and more people and companies are joining our efforts to recycle as much waste as possible. And this is great!
This results in another record in collected recyclables – more than 10 tons in a month!
Breaking it down by types it was:
Separately we delivered 8 60l bags of plastic lids to Batumi for the Recycleaf project.
Last month 380 people visited our garage. We want to thank our volunteers who make this number possible by dedicating their time and effort to keep the garage open almost every day!
This is the first time that we collected such an amount in just one month! And this happened despite our Summer break.
To be exact, we collecte 1005 kg of plastic. Most of them were plastic bottles.
Besides, we collected:
All in all, around 5,5 tons of waste was diverted from landfills and sent for recycling and reuse!
Gosh, June was hot! Luckily not temperature wise 😉
⚡️In June we collected 5 tons of waste! ⚡️
‼️And set another Garage record with 263 visitors. Thanks to all the volunteers who dedicated their time to keeping it open for longer hours.
We are happy to see more and more demand for responsible waste management from residents and businesses alike. Together we drive the development of more sustainable solutions. ❤️
Here are the numbers by waste types for May:
♻️ PET bottles – 482 kg
♻️ Other PET – 106,5 kg
♻️ HDPE & PP – 41,3 & 46 kg
♻️ LDPE – 12 kg
♻️ Aluminum – 62 kg
♻️ Tin – 70 kg
♻️ Paper/Cardboard – 738 kg
♻️ Glass for reuse – 4126 bottles & jars
♻️ Glass for recycle – 1 ton
Recycle with us but also don’t forget that reducing & reusing is always better. 😉
Today we want to share with you 2 important updates regarding recycling details of 5 (PP) plastic items:
1. We are now accepting soft plastic packaging with mark 5 (PP) in our Garage. Examples: soft packs with grains, rice, etc., bread soft plastic packaging, packaging for sweets/cookies.
Important: we accept only packaging with appropriate mark of plastic type
Please note: we don’t accept any soft packaging (even with the mark) that has shiny metallic cover inside (like a pack of chips has).
2. Do you have Matsoni/sour cream jars and cream cheese containers? If you do, we kindly ask you to remove the film covering most of the matsoni and sour cream containers and paper cover of some of cream cheese and other milk products’ containers.
How to remove the film/paper cover: cut the film/paper with the knife at the bottom of the container and remove the film. This change is the requirement of the recycler of this type of plastic.
Another month flew by.
We like to sum up the results of our work
on a monthly basis and we think it is important
to publish them. So here we are.
In May we collected 4 tons of waste! It is 1,3 ton more than in April.
And this is not because you created more waste, but because more people participated in the collection.
The Garage is becoming more and more popular. In May it was visited by 255 people, more than 100 people more than the previous month!
Eco-taxi did 7 rides this month and visited 100 addresses.H
ere are the numbers by waste types for May:
PET bottles – 499 kg
Other PET – 84 kg
HDPE & PP – 40 & 46 kg
Aluminum – 72,6 kg
Tin – 102 kg
Paper/Cardboard – 671 kg
Glass for reuse – 4045 bottles & jars
Glass for recycle – 1,2 tons
Kudos to our Eco-Taxi team and volunteers for managing all this waste! And of course for all of you who sort and clean and take care of your waste!
From January 2022 we accept used blister packs in our Garage. Collected items will be sent to Russia for recycling (there is a facility that can do it). We will not accept this type of waste via Eco-taxi service. To drop off you can check the dates and working hours at the Garage page .
Do you have any bubble wrap at home that you don’t use as an anti-stress tool? 🙂 Bring it to us for reuse!
From January we start accepting in our Garage intact bubble wrap (with air in the bubbles) for reuse in the studio Modi Ceramic Project. They will use it to make sure delicate ceramic products are safely delivered to their new homes.
Please note that we won’t be accepting bubble wrap
via Eco-taxi pick up. ONLY in our Garage.
Do you have any bubble wrap at home that you don’t use as an anti-stress tool? 🙂 Bring it to us for reuse! From January we start accepting in our Garage intact bubble wrap (with air in the bubbles) for reuse in the studio Modi Ceramic Project. They will use it to make sure delicate ceramic products are safely delivered to their new homes. Please note that we won’t be accepting bubble wrap via Eco-taxi pick up. ONLY in our Garage. Bubble wrap is not recyclable in Georgia but it can actually be reused many times! Reduce its negative impact by extending its life 🙂 Check the Garage schedule to plan your next drop off.
Here are the dates of our traditional winter holidays so that you can plan the days of delivery before and after the New Year.
⚡️Eco-taxi and all garages will not work from December 25 to January 8.
Before and after these dates, we work as usual.
You can order an eco-taxi and see the schedule of garages on our website: eco-taxi.g
Vake Garage: 6 Mtskheta lane
Saburtalo Garage: Al. Kazbegi, 34a
Chugureti Garage: 19 Queen Tamar Ave
