Shock Value

Bulk E-Waste collection through communities

Comment

Idea

A process for L&T to organise talkoot style bulk waste collection at workplaces and set up an automatic system to keep them updated on their customers' e-waste levels so they can optimize the waste collection process, enabling profitable e-waste collection at a fair price.

Inspiration

The e-waste management process is very chaotic, even for large companies. It’s even worse for individuals and small communities

  • Many different subcontractors doing part of the process
  • Requires lots of manual work, self motivation and effort on behalf of the companies
  • The people making the decisions aren’t always well informed about how to best dispose of different things. So they look for information themselves with varying levels of success
  • Storing e-waste is a problem, as companies don’t always have enough space
  • Employees want to recycle and have e-waste piled at home but don’t have motivation and knowledge to do it alone.
  • Employees also had no knowledge of work e-waste programs so if it exists the people don’t know about it
  • Lots of solutions for e-waste like laptops etc, but not for smaller electronics
  • People are more motivated when tackling these problems in communities / groups
  • There are many incentives and regulations for companies to handle e-waste responsibly
  • The guidelines and regulations for e-waste are not as clear cut
  • Defective stuff is often mailed back in by the companies, which can get expensive if not done in bulk
  • Transparency is desired -> people really want to know

What it does

What it does? Our solution aims to concentrate the e-waste of consumers and companies while optimizing the collection process to make convenient recycling profitable.

  • L&T and the IT-manager or some other responsible person from the customer company will go through the company’s current situation and design a service package that suits their needs
  • They will also implement an accounting system for the company to track the e-waste that they produce and integrate that to L&T’s systems so that L&T will always be aware of how much e-waste the company has in their stock
    • Many companies already have a system to track their incoming and outgoing material flows, so this will mostly boil down to creating a line of communication that keeps L&T updated in real time.
  • After the background work is done, they organize a day in which the company’s current e-waste is collected, and the employees are also encouraged to bring their own old electronics to be recycled. At the same time the employees can be educated about the importance of recycling e-waste and the opportunity that from now on they can recycle their old electronics through their workplace.
  • With an established line of communication that keeps L&T updated in real time on their customers’ e-waste levels, they can plan their routes, vehicle needs, personnel resources etc. to make the transportation of the waste as low cost as possible.
  • Through this system, also the employees of L&T’s customers can conveniently get rid of their e-waste, which is great employer branding for them.
    • The employees can trust that their employer, L&T and its subcontractors handle the recycling process safely in terms of their data as well as the environment.

How we built it

We researched e-waste, got inspired by our own frustrating experience, conducted more than 20 user interviews and validated with our partner L&T.

Challenges we ran into

Complex logistics, companies do not agree to participate, technological application issues, infrastructure

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We learned how to dispose of our trash better and didn't fight with each other during the design process.

What we learned

  • E-waste seems small but is a large and important problem.
  • Always ask your case-owners for their future plans.

What's next for Shock Value

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

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