Tampinha Legal (Cool Cap) - a circular economy in practice

1. We are committed to reducing plastic waste.

2. We are proposing a socio-enviromental education through actions which modify collective behavior. Encourage the gathering of plastic caps by civil society to convert into resources for NGO.

3. Our solution can positively change the lives of millions if it can be scaled globally through educational efforts  covering the three pillars for a sustainable society: the social, environmental and economic. By generating financial resources, we increase the income of NGOs that can purchase medicines, equipment, medical examinations, and medical treatments. The whole society benefits by having properly disposed waste through selective collection, thus significantly improves health and consequently increasing the quality of life of those cared for and their families. In another words: the entire world population. All the collected material returns to the industry as raw material in the Circular Economy. 

Reduction of plastic waste contribute to the Circular Economy in actions to by enlighten and educate regarding adequate destination of plastic waste (socio-enviromental education). A large scale of plastic waste all over the world is a systemic issue. First we were working in a small scale in our city. After we began to work in our region. Nowadays we are working in other regions up to our entire country. Everybody is affected by pollution (all living systems). The main cause is the low level of awareness  as to the appropriate disposal of post consumption waste and the promotion of circular economy. Through education we intend to reach people making them aware of consumption consequences and the real possible reduction of waste. People gather plastic caps, NGOs provide the logistic and sorting by colors. The material is sold to recycling industry. 100% of the value obtained by the selling of the material goes to NGOs. All plastic caps returns to recycling industry as raw material. Tampinha Legal is a real Circular Economy happening every day inside every home, every school and every city.

We are  working to directly and meaningfully improve the quality of life of of those cared for and their families by NGOs. I often attend meetings and workshops to hear and discuss to understand their needs.In this manner - circular economy - we can generate financial sustainability solutions.

The plastic waste reduction by socio-enviromental education. Our target is to change, on large scale, collective behaviour and actions in connection to how plastic is used. We present this solution in an innovative way. We invite communities to join us gathering plastic caps from many different products.

We engage every part of society and make everybody to do the same thing at the same time.

We present a solution based on solidarity.

We have a flow chart illustrating our circular economy model.These actions promote: reduce, reuse and recycle. They are easy, motivating, joyful and low cost actions and can modify collective behavior.

Our solution has a sequence of steps.

a) Sign up: NGOs must enroll in our website and log on (There is an option to do this). They register with the proper documentation and they must provide information that can show that they are able of gathering enough plastic caps. b) Logistics: NGOs distribute customized plastic galons stamped with  "Tampinha Legal: every plastic cap makes a difference" used as containers throughout the community. Then, they register the collection point address in our management system. All addresses are shown in our website. Each NGO has its own collection point, with weekly pick ups. c) Gathering: Each NGO makes their own campaign through social media  (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, sites, etc) asking for plastic caps. They invite their network to use their collection points. Today we have more than 2000 voluntary collection points distributed in churches, metro station, hospitals, schools, stores, companies, public departments, etc.

d) Segregation: The NGOs must sort the plastic caps by color to raise the final value.

e) Delivering: The NGOs package the material sorted by colors and schedule their delivery day through our website. f) The NGOs receive their funds directly from the recycler's bank account. There are no commitment fees and NGOs are exempt from taxes. It means 100% of the resource from the material goes to NGOs. g) the material becomes a raw material again producing another useful object: the real circular economy happens

h) the program survives by sponsors

Providing advice and consulting for NGOs to receive more resources. Lectures and workshops for companies, schools and public bodies clarifying as to the proper destination of plastic waste and how it can become resource to NGOs. In addition to the recycling and a taylor made developed data management system, website and social media.

We have a circular economy model. The solidarity is an important item of our strategy. It works as the main key in this to reach our target population.

This is the reason why we only accept (all kind of) social entitites (ex.:whose that fights against cancer, assist persons with disabilities, abandoned elderly, etc) and NGOs (ex.: whose help animals, chemical dependency, etc), hospitals and schools to benefit theirselves from the plastic caps.

- It must: - respect inclusion by having inclusionary and accessibility policies. 

- be clear, transparent and compliance procedures like:

a) a website with all the information about us and our procedures, including graphic presentation of results, and a "plastic capmeter " ("tampômetro" ) b) data management system where each NGO has its own login and password. In this system they can check how much material they collected, how much money they have made, they can insert collection points, download our stamps, rules, etc

- easy to use : everyone can apply directly into our website (NGO, volunteers, companies, etc).

- easy to do: everyone can gather their plastic caps in gallons, boxes, bottles, etc - easy comunication: through Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Whatsapp, etc where everyone can talk and ask about everything related to the program, etc

Our solution is a new business model by an existing technology: recycling.

We developed a taylor made management data system that send data to our website and vice-versa.

Our goal is motivate everyone to gatehring plastic caps.

We are directly contributing to the extraction of plastic from the ocean-bound waterways and increasing the quality of life at the same time.

This model is completely replicable. We can prove that plastic is money through gathering plastic caps which is a globally recognizable and tradable currency that, when used, increases the quality of life and teaches everyone how to clean the environment at the same time. It´s not just about plastic and recycling. It´s a new way to teach everyone to make the right thing: A material whose value is transferred through the lives of the people who encounter it, rich and poor. We add fun and formality into a new sense of value. We're operating in some states of Brazil. We have some partners. We're commited to all over Brazil. We're collecting tons and tons of plastic caps.

According to our charts, we expect our solution to address the problem.

Tampinha Legal has been started  in 2016.

Up to now we gathered more than 200 tons of plastic caps which means more than R$ 400.000,00 (~ U$ 100.000,00). 100% of this money was sent to each NGO.

These numbers increase weekly. We receive more than 5 tons of material weekly.  

All these plastic caps return to recycling as raw material. It is an easy way to make the circular economy happens.

We expect reach R$ 1 million in the end of this year. It represents more than 500 tons of plastic caps returning to recycling.

We are currently serving about 400.000 people with our solution.

We´ll be serving about 1.000.000 people in one year.

We´ll be serving about 10.000.000 people in five years

We have a successfully impacted  many lives because the project is motivating, fun, and creates solidarity with people who love to collect plastic caps. They find pleasure in sorting  by colors. They make big groups to collect. We have a lot of pictures of a people smiling whose enjoy the process and their contributions. They are happy in participating and helping. They realize and take ownership of the project and become part of the solution. Collecting plastic caps means that you are someone who cares about the world and others demands. As a fun, motivating and low cost social endeavor, the number of volunteers has grown day after day. The data shows the number of participants and results.

Our past results and current goals:  July 2017 19 tons -31 NGOs - 514 stations = R$ 39.890,52 (U$ 9.000,00)

December 2017 36 tons -74 NGOs - 862 stations = R$ 71.199,47 (U$ 17.000,00)

July 2018 79 tons - 141 NGOs -991 stations = R$ 151.453,33 (U$ 38.000,00)

December 2018 131 tons - 250 NGOs -1086 stations = R$ 247.729,74 (U$ 62.000,00)

March 2019 210 tons -289 NGOs - 1414 stations = R$ 392.176,77 (U$ 76.000,00) 

The barriers are finding the labor force, improving media exposure and broadening social  understanding of costs, funding and results.

We are improving the management model, getting more sponsors and raising awareness-raising

Tampinha Legal intend to inspires teams to focus their talent and creativity to unlocking new ideas and innovations that can address the correct plastic destination issue that needs to be solved. We are convinced it is the solution the world needs.

Our solution team is composed by 5 people: 2 full time staff and 3 part time staff.

Our team is best-placed to deliver this solution due to our skills.

We have background and experiences about people needs, experiences with plastics, plastics waste and specific administrative procedures.

We have developed a taylor made flow chart of customer service to reach our goals.

Increasing the quality of life by increasing financial resources obtained after the sale of recycled and recovered material. Each Brazilian produces 400Kg of residue every year, but only 3% of that gets recycled. The per capita consumption of plastic is 28Kg per year in Brazil.

Almost all of the country's selective collection is done by independent street-collectors that sell those materials for a living.

We match residue makers with residue takers. We match profit and purpose.

A website can clearly know everything about Tampinha Legal: We are in touch with all those more than 400 registered NGOs in almost 300 cities in Brazil, and furnish the nearby station collection points when you by zipcode, we provide indicators of how many plastic caps have been collected and show, all our numbers in graphics, news, and media clipping, etc

The best thing is that these numbers increase organically almost 100% each six months.

Tampinha Legal turns NGOs into entrepreneurial actors.

They become their own bosses, getting paid for the pick-ups and the sales of the materials (we are collecting also plastic cups and straws). For us, success is a blend of social inclusion, education, and sustainability in the real world.

We want to connect more than 1 million people in a "big match" between collectors, users, government and companies to preserve natural resources that get scarce every day.

First we began regionally, and now we are going through all of continent sized Brazil and our dream is reach the whole world.

The program is client-based planning for two points of view: increasing the NGOs quality of life and open mind to enviromental conscience at the same time.

This way companies and associations contribute financially to the achievment of the objectives. It´s not a donative due it has counterparts.

We think Solve can help us to clarify about circular economy by reducing barriers to understanding what citizenship is in countries of lesser economic and social development through models that may have already been tested in other areas. If my solution is selected, citizenship will be representative for the advancement of circular economy programs adapted to these countries and even in more developed countries. For example, European countries have a very high rate of cigarette butts thrown to the ground. At the same time they want to implement inadequate environmental policies, neglecting the education / citizenship relationship

We´d like to partner with Wallmart (due to be the greatest supermarket. we can make circular economy works in your stores)

Another partner we would like to work with is Coca Cola. They have a global plan to return 100 % of their plastics up to 2030. We are convinced we can help to solve it all together.