Author Archives: Elisabeth Grass

In a spin with the Loop

The latest announcement from Terracycle is the launch of a scheme called Loop—which will allow consumers to buy products in returnable reusable containers. It is a bold initiative, and is to be applauded for its commitment to cutting plastic waste. However, we at Vesta have a few concerns about its operational model and whether it can really be effective in the long run.

Is this just business as usual?

Customers buy online, and receive their product in a durable plastic package. They can leave it outside and it will be taken away once it’s empty. Sure—the scope for reuse is exciting, but there is no fundamental change in the overall model, and we think the scope for reuse might be limited (see below).

An operational minefield

The cleaning, sorting and management of each container is a pretty significant undertaking and will come with a fairly serious cost. At Vesta we looked extensively into the economics of pick up and re-use, and the costs were a real pain point for FMCG. Unless Loop seeks to provide massive infrastructure—akin to another municipal pick up system, it will be hard to reach cost efficiency

More dumb plastic

Plastic is cheap, it lasts for ages and you can make it strong in virtually any shape. That’s why it’s great. It’s not great if it’s used once, and the direction Loop is going in should be supported. However, how many uses do they expect to get from these refillable packages? Leaving them outside, picking up, dropping off, and industrial cleaning all take their toll. When they get damaged, will consumers still use them? There is limited appeal to dented, dirty, and and scratched shampoo bottle sitting on your bathroom shelf. How many will end up thrown away or chucked in the recycling?

Is this convenient enough?

Environmental credentials alone may not make for a sticky service. A lot of very worthy services have fallen into disuse as they offer no more than what’s available, while asking for extra effort on the part of the consumer. This service is heavily reliant on collection, which is always tough on logistics. That can lead to the kind of consumer pain that will quickly lead to churn. For example, if a pick-up is missed, we are effectively looking at rather a lot of litter on doorsteps.

At Vesta we believe that a more radical overhaul of the way products are provided to consumers will be necessary to address the plastic epidemic. Refillable, reusable plastic is unquestionably the right way to go, but without a stronger and lasting incentive—more than consumers’ willingness to lower their environmental impact—we are concerned that initiatives like the one announced today will struggle to gain and hold traction. It would be a tremendous shame if such a well-intentioned and well supported service created a range of even longer lasting plastic waste.

Amazon Dash breaks German consumer protection rules

It hasn’t been such a happy new year for Amazon Dash in Germany, which has lost a case brought against it by an advocacy group on the grounds of consumer protection.

As reported in Gizmodo , the watchdog was concerned that Dash buttons made it too easy to buy Amazon products, enabled the company to substitute ordered products, and failed to protect shoppers from buying things they were not fully informed about.

At Vesta, we’ve always been skeptical about Dash. Whilst we welcome IoT solutions that further empower the connected home, we worried about its environmental credentials. We feel that Dash embraces the technical and commercial potential of IoT – on-demand consumerism – without addressing glaring issues of sustainability. These range from the proliferation of the buttons – themselves made of plastic – to the abundant cardboard and plastic in which orders are delivered.

As a marketplace and distributor, Amazon is one of the giants of the linear economy (make-store-sell-discard). This has long been the dominant mode of fulfilling consumer needs, but its key players may begin to find, as Dash has done, that its structure and fulfilment models areincompatible with the evolution of a circular economy.

Vesta smart packages address both the need for consumers to have what they want when they want it, and an efficient and circular mode of fulfilment. By introducing intelligence to the edge of the network, we will help our customers provide the service their customers want – on demand, exactly as much as they need, and in no unnecessary packaging.

Accountability and Convenience at the Heart of New Sustainability Initiatives

It’s been an exciting news day in the world of sustainability, with the announcement of several complementary schemes to tackle single-use packaging and the plastic epidemic. This got us talking at Vesta about accountability as an incentive to act in an environmentally responsible way, and about how easy it is to opt out of recycling if the local authority seems to have done the same.

A quick straw poll at Vesta HQ this morning revealed the vagaries of the postcode lottery, with widely different experiences of recycling across the three London boroughs and one county council in which Vesta staff live. Widening it out to family members revealed seemingly limitless permutations of coloured bins, separating, and effort involved, all of which acts as a disincentive to recycle household waste. In addition, blocks of flats and multiple occupancy buildings offer a further challenge, and often see anonymous piles of waste for landfill because services are stretched and there is no possibility of sanctions for failing to designate recycling.

When ease and accountability plummet, so too does the incentive to do the right thing.

The schemes announced today, broadly, are as follows:

  • Consumers will be charged a returnable deposit on packaging.
  • Household recycling will be demystified and streamlined, and county and city councils will aim to eliminate the postcode lottery of waste management services.
  • Businesses will be charged for using polluting and hard-to-recycle materials when producing and packaging their goods.

Done properly, with everyone accepting their share of responsibility for their consumption, these schemes could combine to offer a real alternative to the single-use paradigm. Recycling should be made clear and easy, and in turn there should be financial sanctions for those who fail to comply.

Vesta CEO Tom Mowat has talked here about the ways in which convenience and profitability offer one of the best routes to sustainability. This concept is at the core of our smart refillable containers and of everything we do: seamless services which allow people to make the environmentally appropriate choice.

Vesta selected for IoT Startup Bootcamp 2018

Vesta is thrilled to have been selected for Startupbootcamp IoT’s 2018 acceleration programme!

After a gruelling but great 3-day selection event in London, we were delighted to be invited to join the 3-month programme, working to make our smart refillable solutions a reality and helping consumers, merchants and most importantly the environment.

The next few months are going to be intense and very exciting as we prepare for formal trials with some of our merchant partners. We’re especially looking forward to getting to know the SBC partner network, and to learn from some of the best business mentors, hardware professionals, corporate partners, and investors around.

We can’t wait to get started. The countdown to October 15 begins!

Supermarkets Sign the UK Plastics Pact

In a salutary move, British supermarkets and food companies have launched a new voluntary pledge to cut plastic packaging.

In a first response to the growing awareness and anxiety around the plastic epidemic, most of the UK’s largest supermarkets signed up to support the UK Plastics Pact – an industry-wide initiative which says it aims to transform packaging and reduce avoidable plastic waste.

‘Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl and Waitrose are among the 42 businesses so far supporting the new pledge, which includes an aspiration that by 2025 all plastic packaging can be reused, recycled or composted.’

As The Guardian reports, the government has been debating introducing sanctions to a sector which has traditionally born no responsibility for waste disposal, and has been largely unregulated. By signing the pledge, supermarkets get ahead of parliament, and can begin to create their own recycling and re-use paradigms.

Refillable and reusable solutions are the future, and a combination of bio-friendly and intelligent packaging has the potential to create a real alternative to single-use plastics.

UK supermarkets launch voluntary pledge to cut plastic packaging

UK supermarkets launch voluntary pledge to cut plastic packaging

Critics say retailers can pick and choose whether to sign up to Plastics Pact, a series of pledges that have no enforcement mechanism

Source: www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/uk-supermarkets-launch-voluntary-pledge-to-cut-plastic-packaging

Devouring Plastic

The last month has seen two innovative responses to the plastic crisis, both of which involve the ecologically sound consumption of plastic.

The first involves an edible plastic substitute which not only breaks down naturally, but can be consumed by the very sea creatures which are typically harmed by the non-soluble traditional plastics. Taken to trial with can holders and straws, but applicable across the packaging industry, this offers a paradigm shift and gives waste a purpose:

https://www.facebook.com/stateofthecarte/videos/969766616535871

r/Damnthatsinteresting – Honestly one of the best ideas

The second, the result of a lab experiment gone wrong, pioneers an enzyme which consumes plastic on a molecular level. ‘It all began when researchers took a closer look at the crystal structure of a recently discovered enzyme called PETase, which evolved naturally and was already known to break down and digest plastic … But their investigation had an unlikely result — they introduced a mutation to PETase. The result was a new type of enzyme that digests plastic more efficiently than the original’:

Lab ‘Accident’ Becomes Mutant Enzyme That Devours Plastic

Lab ‘Accident’ Becomes Mutant Enzyme That Devours Plastic

A new enzyme unintentionally produced by researchers has a voracious appetite for plastic.

Source: www.livescience.com/62328-plastic-eating-enzyme.html

 

Both of these solutions are in their earliest phases, but they promise exciting and real changes. Used in tandem with multiple use refillables and traditional recycling methods, these breakthroughs could offer a long term solution to the planet’s plastic build up.

The Internet of Things in the Home

As long ago as 2015, an Institute of Analytics whitepaper on the Internet of Things recognised that its architecture offered ‘the technologies for transformative business applications’. Yet although the uptake has been high in the energy and manufacturing sectors, Jian Yang’s Silicon Valley smart fridge is probably as close as most of us have come to seeing these technologies in our homes.

And it’s not hard to see why. The caricature of a fridge with irritating banter represents the comedic side of a real concern with the encroachment of technologies and companies into our homes. Yet with proper management and minimal interfaces, the IoT offers unparalleled opportunities for waste reduction, and for streamlining busy lives. Iot is the future, but offers real challenges around consumer confidence and identifying genuine need.

As Jason Mann, Director of Industry Product Management at SAS has said, ‘the essence of IoT resides in the source of the data, which are the sensors. Those smart devices generate data about activities, events, and influencing factors that provide visibility into performance and support decision processes across a variety of industries and consumer channels.’ When properly developed and deployed, these sensors assess use of consumer products, and offer supply and delivery solutions which eliminate waste and extraneous packaging. When it comes to combating the plastic epidemic, these technologies offer real solutions, but must be installed at the point of need, preferably without a chatty robot voice.

See the white paper here: https://www.sas.com/en_au/whitepapers/iia-internet-of-things-108110.html

All Plastic Packaging Will Reach Landfill or the Bottom of the Ocean

The former CEO of ASDA has expressed the bald reality that ‘all plastic packaging will reach landfill or the bottom of the ocean sooner or later’, and urged supermarkets to stop using plastic packaging.  This is a welcome clarion call, but with sources indicating that ‘annual consumption of plastic bottles alone is set to top half a trillion by 2021, far outstripping recycling efforts’, a gear change is needed.  The model of one-use packaging is not sustainable, and needs to be replaced by smart refillable alternatives, without loss of ease for the consumer. This is a huge challenge, but with advances in logistics and the increasing interconnectivity offered by the Internet of Things, there has never been a better time to challenge the one-use-package paradigm.

Supermarkets must stop using plastic packaging, says former Asda boss

Supermarkets must stop using plastic packaging, says former Asda boss

Exclusive: Consumers do not want plastic-polluted oceans so supermarkets and packaging industry have to work together, says Andy Clarke

Source: www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/12/supermarkets-stop-using-plastic-packaging-former-asda-boss-andy-clarke