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Phase: Ideas Opportunity Areas: Products to People – Reimagine Delivery Models

Your own cup coffee&water&sodas cheaper option

The coffee shops to sell, for a cheaper price, their drinks (coffee, soda, water, etc), assuming customer have his own cup

Photo of Ion Muraru
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The coffee shops and all she other shops, fast-foods, restaurants etc., who sell sodas, drinking water, hot chocolate etc to have a procedure to sell , for a cheaper price, their drinks, the customer in that way filling his own (stainless steel, glass etc) jug.

I said a procedure because is not complicated just to pour the coffee in the customers jug, as is complicated to change their stock movement, inventory etc. who is based sometimes on the empty cup counting .

For sure if a fast-food chain, for example, will start with advertising like " green planet coffee" (or who knows what else name) offering  their product for half the price ( for example ) , the other similar companies will do the same. 

I saw plenty of customers who right-away they pour the plastic coffee pot in their jug, or the PET water, or the sodas, and after that they just throw in the garbage the empty ( future) plastic waste!

Most of the bottled drinking water , actually, is obtain from the public source (tap water) and is filtered ( reverse osmosis, UV-LED, active carbon etc), some stores sell directly from their on-site filters.

Starting with the day of selling the plastic bags, more and more people came with their own bag, and now will be the same with the plastic cups!

How does this Idea redesign unrecyclable small format plastic items that often end up as waste?

There will be significant less plastic waste, so actually is the idea of another way of vending a product.

Which use cases does your Idea apply to?

Case 3 - The coffee lids case

How do you envision scaling up your Idea?

The biggest step will be to convince a fast-food chain to adopt the idea. After this, the next step will be (somebody) to advertise-it. Then, the others coffee shops, fast-foods etc. will adopt it and - the last - the customers will demand it! Could be on the opposite way, too (but more expensive): first the advertising, after this the customers who will demand it and then the coffee shops to adopt it.

At what stage of development is your Idea?

  • Research & Early Testing: You are exploring an idea, gathering inspiration and information needed to test it with real users.

Please describe how becoming a Top Idea and working with the Think Beyond Plastics Accelerator Program will help to accelerate your solution.

For sure some steps were already done in that direction, but they weren't very successful, maybe because they were divided, not united. Me I think they weren't well promoted. It's not in a one-person power, it's for a force-team! And, a well known situation, alone you can do small things, together BIG ones! To be than together with professionals the things will go faster, and more targeted.

Please describe from where your Idea emerged

First, I saw the on-site filtering water machines, in some big food stores. After that, when I saw peoples who pour the just bought coffee in their own jug. Third, when I start to see customers bringing their own bag, instead of paying the ( store ) plastic one.

Tell us about your work experience

I'm Telecommunication Engineer. I worked in:telecommunications (8 years), owner of a wholesale business and restaurant (8+5 years),telecommunication technician (10 years). Innovator and novel writer

Please describe your legal and organizational structure

I'm on my own for the innovations and writings, and for my job ( telecommunication technician) I'm the owner of an Incorporated Company

This inspired (1)

Re-Imagining the Re-Filling Station
Re-Imagining the Re-Filling Station

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Photo of Kate Rushton
Team

Hi Ion, interesting post! Any chance you could find an image to go along with it? Images help grab attention and tell a story. You should be able to use the Edit Contribution button on the top of your post and follow the instructions to add images from there. Looking forward to seeing more of your inspiring insights on OpenIDEO.

If you are on LinkedIn, you might want to join the Circular Design Guide group - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8585051. This group is about design & the circular economy. It's run jointly by IDEO and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

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