How Five Partners Solved the Great Reusable Dish Dilemma in Mainz

What happens when you ask 300,000 festival-goers to stop using single-use food packaging?

If you have ever been to a major outdoor festival, you know how it goes. You wait in line for food, and then you wait in another line just to return your dirty plate and get your deposit back. Food vendors get overwhelmed, visitors get frustrated, and waste still piles up.

Our mission at Rent.Group is to turn sustainable choices from a good intention into the default industry standard,” says Alexander Hahner at Rent.Group, who set out to fix this exact nightmare for event organizers. By bringing together top partners in payment and automation, Rent.Group wanted to prove that circular event logistics could finally be effortless for everyone involved.

When the organizers of the Mainzer Weinmarkt decided to eliminate disposable dishes across Mainz Stadtpark, Rent.Group brought in four key specialists to build the solution: CircleCube, FEIG, Switchio by Monet+, and Comgate. Together, they built a smart collection system that turned a major event headache into a smooth experience.

A Smart Return Experience

Visitors simply walked up to a return kiosk, dropped their dirty plates into a hatch, and let the technology do the rest. The physical kiosks were designed by CircleCube, whose Co-Founder and Managing Director Florian Blümer explains that “automating the collection step is the real key to scaling reusables at major festivals, and our goal was to make returning a plate as quick and intuitive as dropping trash into a bin.”

Inside the kiosk, high-speed RFID readers scanned the tagged dishes in seconds. Once scanned, guests chose their payout option on the screen. They could take cash in coins or tap their card or smartphone on the integrated FEIG cVEND terminal to get the €2 deposit sent straight back to their bank account. Aaron Busch at FEIG notes that “speed and reliability are non-negotiable when thousands of people use return terminals during peak hours, which is why our cVEND terminal technology ensured instant, secure payouts for a flawless refund process.”

Pulling Off a Seamless Project

Behind that simple drop-off hatch was a major cross-industry achievement. Switchio by Monet+ provided the software logic connecting the hardware terminals to the payment networks. Kamil Hanáček from Monet+ recalls that “delivering a fully integrated automated collection and payout solution in such a short project timeline was a true masterpiece, and with so many moving parts operating under live event conditions, it was a miracle that everything ran so smoothly right out of the gate.”

On the backend, Comgate provided the acquiring infrastructure supporting the card-based part of the solution. Jan Hanzlík at Comgate emphasizes that “reliable payment infrastructure was an important part of making the automated return process work smoothly at scale, and we were pleased to support the project.“

Meanwhile, Rent.Group managed the entire physical lifecycle, supplying the reusable tableware, keeping kiosks clear, and transporting dirty items off-site to central washing facilities.

A Proven Model for Future Events

The results in Mainz speak for themselves. Over eight festival days, the automated collection network helped prevent up to 50,000 single-use containers and saved about 5 tons of waste. Vendors saved valuable counter space, while visitors enjoyed their food and wine without waiting in return lines.

What started as an ambitious pilot project has provided a proven blueprint for events across Europe. When you make sustainability simple, everyone wins.

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