70 winners out of 700+ applicants: PlasticApp lands the European Innowwide programme to deploy CityBin in Morocco

More than 700 European SMEs applied to Call 4 of the Innowwide programme. 70 were selected. PlasticApp is one of them. Operated by the Eureka network and supported by the European Commission, Innowwide funds companies that want to validate the feasibility of an innovation in an emerging market. For us, that market is Morocco — project reference 2025-24687/IW/CALL 4, lump-sum grant of €60,000 over 12 months, official kick-off on June 1st 2026.

Winning Innowwide is more than funding. It validates, through a panel of European experts, a thesis we have been pushing from day one: smart waste management does not need heavy IoT infrastructure to work — it needs the right tools, designed for municipal staff and citizens. Innowwide pushes European SMEs to chase markets beyond the continent. Our target: the Mediterranean basin, starting with Morocco.

Project goal

Adapt CityBin — our citizen app and our SaaS hub for municipalities — to the Moroccan context, and pilot it with a partner municipality in the Souss-Massa region. No hardware sensors, bilingual FR/AR, retraining the AI on local bins, and adding glass to the managed waste streams.

Why Morocco, why now

Morocco's current recycling rate is 7%, with a national target of 25% by 2034. Cumulative market potential between waste management and smart city: €230M. Several factors are aligning:

• FIFA World Cup 2030: direct pressure on urban cleanliness and the international image of host cities.
• Souss-Massa waste master plan finalized, budgets committed.
• Agadir formally engaged in a Smart City roadmap.
• Delegated waste management relaunched in Agadir since 2023: a new investment cycle.

A strong local foothold

We are not doing this alone. We rely on an identified Moroccan ecosystem:

• Jway Services (Agadir) — technology partner and local operator for deployment and adaptation.
• ENCG Agadir / Ibn Zohr University — academic partners for field study and user training.
• Partner municipality in Souss-Massa — PoC phase (currently being qualified).

Four phases over 12 months

1. Context & preparation — mapping the Moroccan waste ecosystem, qualifying target municipalities, field workshops.
2. Technology adaptation — FR/AR localization of app and hub, compliant hosting, AI retraining, glass integration.
3. Pilot — deployment with the partner municipality, real-time dashboards, citizen reports, impact measurement.
4. Evaluation & exploitation — feasibility report, pricing strategy, scaling roadmap for Morocco then the Mediterranean (Tunisia, Egypt).

Our edge in this market

Competing solutions deployed across Europe (Cliiink, Heyliot, etc.) rely on IoT sensors installed in bins: high entry cost, maintenance, hardware dependency. CityBin works without sensors — intelligence sits in the citizen app and the hub. Result: a total cost of ownership about five times lower, and a dual function — data-driven monitoring plus a direct communication channel with citizens. No equivalent identified in Morocco to date.

What's next

We start at TRL 5-6 on the Moroccan market. End-of-project target: TRL 7, ready for larger-scale deployment. Short-term commercial target: capture 5% of the Moroccan smart waste management market in the mid-size cities segment. Long-term: open up the Mediterranean basin. Being among the 10% of Innowwide winners gives us the framework, the credibility and the funding to act. See you in June 2026.