1Less brings the ease of single-use into re-use
to reduce plastic waste for good

Product

A patent pending high-impact IoT circular economy system for food and waste management in B2B environments.

Problem

Over the last years human kind has seen a rapid increase in the amount of plastic waste, especially in B2B environments such as exhibition areas, airports, shopping malls, zoos, entertainment parks and many other areas where there are a lot of public traffic. Most of this waste is produced by food courts, using cups, plates and other items. These are made from a mix of different chemical types of plastic and paper, used only once for a few minutes and then afterwards being disposed. In this way our ecosystem will be even futher polluted, especially our rivers and oceans.

During the last months the Corona virus pandemic showed another big problem – even if corporates had already utilised re-usable dishes, now they have switched back to disposable items, as the infection risk to handle used items is much too high. Probably this situation will sadly stay for a prolonged period, so we will even see a lower rate of re-used cups than before.

From research at exhibition companies and other potential users we have learned alot about waste management procedures behind the scenes. These experiences triggered a solution (see below) for this problem. Now we’re working on a partnership for a first use case, testing and (if needed) optimizing the product market fit (PMF) before we enter the global market.

Our re-usable cups and plates will be done by mono-plastic (100% recycling), the RFID tags are part of the cups and can also be separated and recycled fully.

Problem

Over the last years human kind has seen a rapid increase in the amount of plastic waste, especially in B2B environments such as exhibition areas, airports, shopping malls, zoos, entertainment parks and many other areas where there are a lot of public traffic. Most of this waste is produced by food courts, using cups, plates and other items. These are made from a mix of different chemical types of plastic and paper, used only once for a few minutes and then afterwards being disposed. In this way our ecosystem will be even futher polluted, especially our rivers and oceans.

During the last months the Corona virus pandemic showed another big problem – even if corporates had already utilised re-usable dishes, now they have switched back to disposable items, as the infection risk to handle used items is much too high. Probably this situation will sadly stay for a prolonged period, so we will even see a lower rate of re-used cups than before.

From research at exhibition companies and other potential users we have learned alot about waste management procedures behind the scenes. These experiences triggered a solution (see below) for this problem. Now we’re working on a partnership for a first use case, testing and (if needed) optimizing the product market fit (PMF) before we enter the global market.

Our re-usable cups and plates will be done by mono-plastic (100% recycling), the RFID tags are part of the cups and can also be separated and recycled fully.

Solution

In B2B environments, circle economy is used very rarely. The reason is that returning used cups or plates is a bad deal for both parties – attendees and companies alike. Attendees (especially professionals) don’t like to waste their precious time at exhibition areas or airports, standing in a row of people just to return a used cup. They also don’t like to get cash back as they often only use creditcards. On the other hand, B2B companies running an airport or an entertainment park don’t like to waste time at their food stations returning cash for used plates when instead they could be selling more food or drinks. Also – if there is money in the game (even at a 1 cent level), the big machinery of finance and controlling starts working in the background, producing even more costs.

We have invented a technical solution to offer a sustainable circle economy system for these B2B companies without any need for deposits (USP), developing a re-usable set of cups, plates and cutlery for use in all aspects of food delivery. It’s based on RFID tags and “intelligent” garbage cans with RFID sensors, separating normal waste and reusable pieces of cups & plates.

This way service teams can empty and collect the waste onsite at a local level, transport the circle economy pieces to the existing, industrial washing area and re-stock it back at the food stations, producing a very low carbon footprint.

The whole system is operated by the facility team or 3rd party exhibitors who can buy or rent it for their own booth. Very importantly, the garbage can solution will also incoporate UV to help to mitigate and contain infectious viruses such as Covid-19.

Team

Boris Jebsen

Sven Hermann

Gérald Lamusse

studio flær

BatchOne

Fraunhofer

Siegwerk