San José is Costa Rica’s main urban and population centre and the core of the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM), where a large share of the country’s population, economic activity and waste generation is concentrated. The metropolitan area faces increasing pressure from ordinary waste volumes, limited landfill capacity, illegal dumping and the loss of materials that could remain in productive use. These urban challenges made San José and the GAM the natural starting point for ecoins in 2018.

ecoins was created to address waste management not only as an operational problem, but as a citizen-participation challenge. The model places consumers at the centre and uses positive incentives, education, communication, technology and alliances to encourage people to keep materials in the circular economy.

Its objectives are to improve source separation and the quality of recovered materials; connect residents with authorised recovery channels; support municipalities and waste managers; promote reduction, reuse, repair, recycling and responsible consumption; create partnerships between government, business and communities; and generate information that supports better circular-economy decisions.

Although the initiative has expanded well beyond San José, its metropolitan origin remains central to the case: ecoins demonstrates how a solution developed for the challenges of a capital-city region can evolve into a flexible model transferable to other cities.

ecoins was launched in San José and the Greater Metropolitan Area in April 2018 by Próxima Comunicación. Its original model combined a digital rewards platform with environmental education, strategic communication and partnerships among municipalities, public institutions, waste managers, businesses and residents.

The initial citizen journey was organised around three simple actions: separate, earn and redeem. Residents prepare recyclable materials clean, dry and separated; deliver them through authorised collection centres, municipal routes, clean points or special campaigns; and receive digital ecoins that can be used to participate in draws or obtain benefits offered by participating businesses.

Over eight years, the programme has maintained a permanent innovation process. Rather than remaining a recycling-rewards application, ecoins has evolved into a broader information and citizen-engagement platform for the circular economy. Its current toolbox includes a mobile application and web platform, geolocation of collection points, self-service reporting of deliveries, barcode scanning to provide information on product recyclability, dashboards and reporting tools, and catalogues that give visibility to more sustainable businesses and consumption alternatives.

Education has also become increasingly interactive. An ecoins educational video game, developed with Caribe Circular and Frugal Innovation Hub, teaches children to identify and correctly separate recoverable materials. Digital trivia can be used by companies to train employees on sustainability and circular-economy topics while encouraging participation through gamification.

The platform can support different campaign formats. Actions may focus on a particular neighbourhood or community, an organisation, a municipality or a specific material stream; they can also be designed as large-scale, recurring campaigns. This allows ecoins to work with ordinary recyclables as well as materials requiring dedicated recovery channels, including electronic waste and other special streams.

The model also increasingly addresses upstream circularity. It promotes responsible consumption, visibility for more sustainable products and businesses, and repair as an alternative to disposal. The objective is to intervene before materials lose their value, not only after they become waste.

Technology is therefore treated as an evolving tool rather than the programme’s sole innovation. The core methodology combines citizen motivation, communication, education, partnerships, incentives and data. This makes it possible to integrate ecoins with infrastructure already operating in a city rather than requiring municipalities to replace existing collection systems.

The San José/GAM implementation provided the environment in which this methodology was tested and refined. Subsequent applications in other territories, including Mérida, Mexico, demonstrate that the model can be transferred by adapting communication, collection points, incentives and operating procedures to local conditions.

ecoins operates through a collaborative public-private model. The platform and its methodology provide the common infrastructure for citizen engagement, incentives, communication and data, while participating organisations contribute different resources according to their role.

Municipalities and public institutions provide access to local recovery systems, collection points, campaigns, communication channels and institutional coordination. Waste managers and collection centres receive and process materials and provide operational information. Businesses support the ecosystem through partnerships, incentives, products, services, campaigns and, in some cases, post-consumer recovery initiatives. Communication and environmental education connect these actors with residents and help sustain participation.

The model has also involved Costa Rica’s Ministry of Health and other public institutions in recovery initiatives, particularly for materials requiring specific management. Small and medium-sized enterprises have historically played an important role in the network of participating businesses.

This distributed model allows ecoins to complement existing urban infrastructure and mobilise resources already present in a territory, reducing the need to create a parallel waste-management system.

By 2026, eight years after its launch in San José, ecoins reports more than 123,000 accounts created, over 500 new families joining each month, more than 11,600 tonnes of recoverable material registered as recovered, and an estimated 13,900 tonnes of CO₂ emissions avoided. The ecosystem includes more than 750 collection points, more than 200 allied companies, as well as a digital community of more than 120,000 social-media followers.

These figures reflect the programme’s expansion beyond its original San José/GAM implementation while preserving the city-region as the place where the model was initially developed and tested.

Operational experience has also shown qualitative benefits. Waste managers have reported productivity gains when materials arrive clean and separated. Earlier municipal experience in the GAM indicated that, before ecoins, up to 30% of material received at some recovery centres could be unusable or non-recoverable.

A recent transfer experience in Mérida, Mexico, provides additional evidence of replicability. The implementation incorporated local collection points into ecoins’ digital tools, trained the municipal team and registered 5,936 kg of recoverable materials and 1,400,647 ecoins awarded during the documented period.

The principal challenge has been sustaining citizen participation over time. Information campaigns alone can generate temporary awareness, while circular-economy systems require repeated behaviours. ecoins has responded by combining education with incentives, gamification, recurring campaigns and continuous communication.

A second challenge is the uneven availability and quality of recovery infrastructure. The programme does not control all collection centres, municipal routes or material markets, so implementation must adapt to the capacities of each territory and to the materials that can actually be recovered locally.

Maintaining attractive rewards and coordinating multiple public and private actors also requires permanent partnership building. The value proposition must remain relevant to residents, municipalities, waste managers and businesses simultaneously.

Finally, data quality and comparability have evolved as the platform has grown. ecoins has progressively strengthened digital registration, dashboards and traceability tools. These challenges have reinforced a key principle of the programme: innovation must be continuous, and technology, incentives and communication must evolve with local conditions rather than remain fixed.

The San José experience shows that urban circularity depends not only on collection infrastructure but also on sustained citizen participation. Making the required behaviour simple — clean, dry and separate — and combining it with positive incentives, education and communication has been fundamental.

A second lesson is to build on what a city already has. ecoins can connect with municipal routes, clean points, recovery centres, private waste managers, special campaigns or automated collection systems. Its value lies in adding a layer of citizen engagement, information, incentives and data rather than replacing existing infrastructure.

Permanent innovation is another success factor. Since 2018, ecoins has expanded from rewarding recycling to include gamified education for children and employees, product information, responsible-consumption visibility, repair, targeted and recurring campaigns, geolocation and data tools. This allows the model to respond to new circular-economy priorities without losing its original citizen-centred approach.

The programme is therefore suitable for transfer to other cities. Mérida provides recent evidence that the methodology can be adapted outside Costa Rica through local training, collection-point integration, communication and incentives.

More broadly, the experience suggests that the transferable element is not a single application but a flexible methodology for connecting residents, municipalities, businesses and waste managers. Depending on local infrastructure, institutional arrangements and priorities, this approach may complement separate collection, extended producer responsibility, reuse and repair initiatives, as well as other existing circular-economy systems.

Chaves Brenes, K. (2024, February 14). San José: Ecoins: Promoting the circular economy and decarbonisation through public-private partnerships. International Institute for Environment and Development. www.iied.org/san-jose-ecoins-promoting-circular-economy-decarbonisation-through-public-private-partnerships

ecoins. (n.d.). ecoins. Retrieved September 16, 2026, from www.ecoins.eco