700+ machines. Every bottle counted.

You can walk up to one of them this week. Sparklomats stand in shopping centres, supermarkets and residential areas across 10 countries, and every container that goes into one is counted by the machine that took it in. We sell the collection of bottles a machine has counted, and nothing else.

• 700+ Sparklomats in 10 countries
• 470,000 people using the Sparklo app
• 200,000,000+ containers collected by Sparklo's network
• 15 g of PET counted per bottle, frozen on every record

What a machine does

A person feeds containers in one at a time. The machine identifies each one, counts it and pays a reward into the Sparklo app.

The count is the record. We do not estimate collection, and we never call this ocean plastic recovered: our machines stand in cities, not on beaches.

Four rules that keep this honest

• Only machines no brand pays for. Bottles from Sparklomats that a brand already pays for are never sold: their story belongs to that brand.
• One bottle, one funder. Each collected container is allocated to at most one Bottles Back Record.
• Sold against a monthly plan. Every month Sparklo sets a plan for each country: how many bottles are open for funding there, based on what its machines collect. Each purchase goes to a country with room in its plan where one exists, and the bottles on every record are counted only from what the machines have actually collected.
• One weight, frozen. One bottle is counted as 15 grams of PET, a conservative average for 500 ml bottles collected in the Gulf. The weight shown on each record is frozen at the moment of issue and does not change if the factor is later refined.

Where the money goes

Your funding pays for Sparklo's collection program in the country of your record: rewards paid to people who return bottles and cans, operation and maintenance of Sparklomats, and transport of collected material to licensed recyclers. A share covers payment processing, taxes and running this service. We publish the breakdown once a year.

What a record is and is not

A Bottles Back Record confirms that you paid for the collection and recycling of the stated number of plastic bottles through Sparklo's program. It is not a carbon or plastic offset, it does not certify any product or company as neutral, and it is not a charitable contribution: it is a paid service with a VAT invoice.