Easy Cup Recycling and reusing package container

We are committed reduce the plastic products reaching oceans or landfills by enabling complex product recycling and reusing package containers. 

Our main aim to provide provision and robust process for the hard to recycle coffee cups to reach the specialized recycling centre. And scaling the scope to reuse the package container instead of recycling. For example a shampoo bottle or washing up liquid container are mostly not recyclable even if possible they are  made into different product which results in  larger footprint These products can be reused provided they are taken back to the manufacturer in a good condition and the retailer are on board to trial the process. Our solution is to collect the coffee cups to the dedicated recycling centre. On success of which to expand the scope to reuse product packaging.

We are passionate about solving the current recycling crisis regarding the coffee cups that are used in UK and the percentage of the cups being recycled. Currently 2.2bilion coffee cups are used in a year in UK and less two percent are recycled since they need to be sent to a specialised centre in UK.

The coffee cups are lined with a thin plastic film which makes it hard to recycle in the traditional recycling centre. Only three facilities in UK have facilities to separate the plastic film from the paper and recycle them effectively. The current issues are awareness and robust infrastructure for the cups to reach the facility.

Public are not aware that the cups that end in normal bin or recycling bin do not end up in being recycled. This is because the cups are contaminated by other waste and the recycling centre does not have any contract or facility in place to take these cups to the specialised recycling centre.

This crisis is global, in USA alone 50 billion coffee cups are thrown away in a year which is equivalent to 600,000 gallons of gas consumed or 6 million pounds of coal burned each year.

The population we will be serving will be Cambridge, UK and their surrounding areas. Cambridge is a highly touristic area with maximum number of tourists visiting the city colleges and to punt during weekends and holidays. Even a normal working day has visitors from abroad especially from South East Asia. The city has two big malls, famous Kings College and other colleges, punting in the river which is compared to Venice.

A simple calculation from one of the busiest coffee shops in Grand Arcade a shopping mall gave a calculation of 4000 cups minimum a month with around 2 million cups a year from in around Grand Arcade with minimum number of cups used for twenty coffee shops. This scaled to all the coffee shops in the town, two major hospitals, train station with regular commute to London, Liverpool and Peterborough, and another mall with colleges can scale up to 6-8million cups a year which without proper recycling process always end up in landfill. I have reached out to council who are keen to provide support provided a working scheme is in place. The hospitals are keen to improve their recycling facility and a provision there would help greatly.

The solution is to provide a way for customers to drop their cups in dedicated bins that are placed in different high footfall places. The bin has a provision to empty the liquid in one opening, the lid in another and just the cups in the main bin. Typically the bin will have three openings for the liquid, lid and the cups. The lids and the liquid are then emptied by the regular cleaning agency and cups are collected and made provisions to be transported to the specialist recycling facility.

The solution has two parts. One is awareness by the general public and the retailers that sell them the drinks. Second is making provision for the cups to reach the specialist centre. Awareness can be created by means of heavy campaign in the areas where public are mainly to have a drink. In Cambridge it will be the main city centre, two major malls and their surrounding areas, near major punting areas, train station, hospitals and bio medical campuses. The campaigning is done by means of leaflets, volunteers talking to public, speeches in schools and colleges and also social media campaigning and talks on the radio.

For providing provision for the cups to reach their dedicated recycling centre two ways are feasible. Certain shops of Costa, Starbucks, Café Nero are collecting cups from the customers and send them to recycling centres. Increasing customer awareness of this facility will help.Our solution is to have specialized cup collecting bins which has provisions to pour liquid in one part of the bin,lid separately and the cup into the the other part of the bin.Basically a bigger bin with three provisions for customers to empty liquid and dispose cup and lid separately.

Coffee cups are used worldwide and not all countries have facilities to recycle them.Ultimate goal is to innovate a cup that is bot cod=st effective and degradable.

Once the cups have a standard process plan is to concentrate on aluminium cans which be wholly recycled and the reuse of containers like shampoo,moisturizer,washing-up liquid.The scope is huge and the effect it can have on sustainable way of product usage in enormous.For not all retail packages or containers are recyclable ending up in landfill.If we collect all the empty bottles and reuse them.Aim is to trial in a small scale with a product to prove the feasibility.

Our solution is innovative because it addresses the core problem and provides a simple way to address the issue.

Public are not aware and have not been given an option to dispose cups in a responsible way. There is generally a lack of solution to dispose cups that would enable them to be recycled properly. Our solution is to create awareness among general public which will lead to at least 50% of recycling to none now. Provision of specialised bin with clear, markings and heavy marketing regarding recycling will help. Training coffee shops to remind customers about appropriate recycling and having flyers at coffee shops will help immensely. The option they can bring back the cup when they are done even on a different day even if it is a different brand will encourage the people. For example Starbucks will accept Costa’s and other brand coffee cups.

Currently people are not aware that coffee shops do accept the cups for recycling. Having appropriate stickers and flyers at coffee shops will both create awareness and encourage people to bring back their cups.

In terms of product packaging if the customers bring back their container like shampoo, washing up liquid, cleaning product containers to a dedicated disposable area these containers will be saved from contamination and can be reused to refill the same product. Our solution will enable to collect the containers and distribute them to the respective manufacturer.

Our solution uses new model and uses technology to target high usage areas to have maximum impact. The new model is to have bins specially designed to tackle coffee cups in high footfall area. Technology like Big data and Machine learning predictive analysis will help to target areas where coffee cups are used extensively and predictive analysis will help to gauge how much of usage  if the trend continues as it is.

RFID can also be used to track the cups. And all other single use plastic packaging to ensure they don’t end up in landfill and ocean.

Public behavioural change is key for the success of this model. People bringing back the cup or recycling appropriately is the key change.

Model of reusing the containers is new as we generally bin them or recycle if it is recyclable. By using machine learning we can gauge the carbon foot print saved and the amount of equivalent coal burnt is saved. Reusing forms the core basis of circular economy.

Social networks will be widely used for campaigning and creating awareness.

We expect our solution to work as there is now a solution in place instead of no solution. The measurement of success largely lies adaptation of change by the public. Given the measure that we are taken it is very likely for the people to change their behaviours. I have spoken to many people who after knowing the impact of the cups not being recycled have switched to reusable cups are avoid having coffee in a paper cup.This is purely due to awareness. What the brain understands will be hard to ignore.

Hubbub a charity based organisation ran a similar approach for cups and water bottles which had a great success in Leeds.

Similarly in the hospital I work once the provision is made for recycling and the general awareness created the number of cups to be recycled have reached to hundred per day from none.

In terms of reusing product containers already the concept is being widely circulated and people are getting aware of the circular economy. While recycling helps the effort must be taken to reduce the number of plastic single use containers we produce and reuse ones the we already use.

There are three people serving my solution. As we have people on the ground and expand the scope and scale we are expecting to be grown to hundred in a year and 3000 in five years.

Goals for the next year is to expand the coffee cup recycling from Cambridge to near by areas like Ely,Peterbrough,Norfolk,Birmingham,Manchester and mainly in London. The scope will increase to water bottles, aluminium cans and to all product packaging ensuring none of them hit land fill or oceans.

We are also having high touristic areas in our scope. Like Croatia which has high plastic pollution. The ultimate aim is to reduce the plastic waste and to provide alternate solution for all food packaging, product packaging ,every single item that can be recycled or reused effectively. To have carbon footprint mapped for each product is a long term goal. Like how we look at food and have calories on them similarly every product will say how many percentage it can ne reused and recycled and their carbon footprint effect.

Barriers mainly include funding to run the projects, government and retailers support and talented people to carry the vision forward. With climate change and renewable energy being the way forward we are hoping for a better adoption of the processes and the ease of use for recycling to be adopted by general public.

But this is a very passionate idea mainly done with people's time on their own and from government corporate initiative to run it like business funding is very critical.

Passionate people who believe in the cause are also very critical to the success of the program.

All these initiatives would be hugely successful if the council is on board with the scheme and the government support larger schemes like reusing the packaging.

Funding to be addressed by pitching the idea to different forums and reaching out to philanthropists to support the greater vision. Reaching out to banks to support small business is also in scope.

Initial reach out will be for volunteers who believe in the cause.And people who are really passionate about making the change. The interviews will be focused on the passion, talent and attitude and the best of the class will be recruited.

Cambridge city council is already on board in terms of coffee cup recycling and if the retailers on board with the reusability concept then it can be tested and rolled out for wider business.

Three part time staff who are volunteers work to provide the solution.Initially volunteers will be widely used to create awareness and as the scope grows and the funding secured the solution team will be full time permanent employees.

I am engineer with nineteen years of experience in bringing both business and technical transformation to banking industry like Nationwide Building Society, Jaguar Landover(automotive),University of Cambridge(education) and Currently NHS(healthcare).

I have programme management, stake holder management, team building, organisation and behavioural change, lead several technical team, scoped for business cases and has successfully delivered many programmes.

Of late my skills have been widely used in delivering transformation changes within teams to improve efficiency and cost saving.

I am deeply passionate about environment and meaningful recycling has been in my talks and mind for a long time.

I have several friends who are helping me with this mission with similar background. And we strongly feel best placed to deliver the solution due to our passion and commitment.

Waiting for partnering with Hubbub Starbucks to provide similar solution which will be announced by July 10th.Currently looking for partners.

Our key customers are general public where we provide solution to better recycling of the products they use. Which in turn will result in less carbon foot print and would help in better climate and less plastic pollution in the ocean. The grand aim is always to reduce the pollution that reaches the ocean and landfill. Plastics degrade into micro plastics which in turn affects the soil we grow food, air we breathe and water we drink. This initiative will help humans in general for better quality of life.

For financial sustainability we will be looking for funding the business initially. While recycling coffee cups will not generate income in the long run while many cups are turned into products like books, slate and other valuable products this will generate revenue. And while scale of savings in terms of cups is realised we expect projects from government, enterprises  to solution which will in turn generate revenue.

We are reaching out for Solve to provide mentorship and partnerships with similar organisation. I would be very grateful if I can get valuable board members who can advise on running a start-up in terms of legal, finance and business model. We have great idea, drive and the work but would need some good people with great experience willing to guide us. And funding will also be our main objective to collaborate with organisation who believe in circular economy.

Organizations which are pioneer in circular economy and works with innovative recycling engineering as its core value.

Our solution aims at zero waste for package containers. For example all products which comes in the form of a bottle or tube or can they can either be recycled or binned to fill up the land fill. If it is a washing up liquid bottle once after use  we dispose the bottle. Some areas recycle them many don't. If recycled the bottle will be converted to another plastic product in some shape or form. In reality none of the plastic products created ever leave the earth. Plastics turn into micro plastics affects air, water and land.

By enabling our solution what the containers are collected without any contamination and send back to their respective retailers. The retailers then use the same container to fill-up washing up liquid and sell the product.

This solution is very powerful in making the product to be used to their maximum life capacity.

water bottles, beauty products ,all cooking ingredient containers, spice boxes can be reused without taking to the recycling centre