Recycle a bottle, feed a stray: Eco-friendly automats pop up across Turkey

An automatic pet food dispensing machine developed by a Turkish company will not only help feed stray animals but also help collect recyclable waste at the same time.

Mehmet Akay, the chairman of Pugedon, said the curfews and lockdowns imposed in Turkey to curb the coronavirus has made it more difficult for stray animals to find food, and hence they came up with the novel idea of creating a "mamamatiks", aka vending machines for pets.

Noting that stray animals can fall ill when they cannot find enough water and food, and especially young ones often die, Akay said his company developed the machine to meet the nutritional needs of street animals.

"While doing this work, we thought of contributing to the needs of our dear friends on the street. Our main purpose here was to instill environmental awareness and a love of animals in people, especially among the youth and children. We believe that we have achieved this goal with our mamamatik," said Akay.

The way this machine contributes to both causes is by giving credit for plastic, glass and metal boxes deposited into the mamamatik that can then be used to dispense food and water for the animals from the same machine.

Akay said the company had installed 55 mamamatiks in Istanbul and 20 in other provinces for now. He added that animals on the street have even started to recognize the mamamatiks and know where to go when they get thirsty and hungry.

Akay also underscored that the project is intended to reduce waste, which is a serious problem in Turkey.

"It takes hundreds of years for a plastic bottle to disappear in nature and also causes major pollution in the environment. Instead of throwing away those plastics, we throw them into the machines and recycle them," he said.

He added that their goal is to install machines all over Turkey, contributing to recycling and feeding animals nationwide.