Recycling — both as an industry and consumer behaviour — simply isn’t working as well as it needs to. Our consumption of plastic bottles is just one example. Forbes reports:
Globally humans buy a million plastic bottles per minute
Plastic bottles are commonly made from polyethylene terephthalate (Pet), which take 400 years to naturally decompose, yet is highly recyclable
Despite this, 91% of all plastic is not recycled
Al Costa, CEO of Tekntrash, elaborates, ‘We at Tekntrash believe the entire recycling model has failed, as it has never rewarded people for recycling: the model has always been a stick instead of a carrot.’
Moreover, recycling omits and even negates the valuable consumer data which is inherent in trash. Global consumer goods know a lot about their distribution chains, but astonishingly little about where their products end up. According to Al Costa, ‘Many companies still don’t understand the value of data. As such, they can’t comprehend the importance of post-sales data and its impact in future sales.’
Historically, product manufacturers depend on sales and market research data to know consumer patterns. This ignores the fact that we live in an increasingly data-driven world. As Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, has said: ‘The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight.’
Tracking and tracing of data already occurs in other industries and sectors. The FT reports that, ‘each year Rolls-Royce gathers more than 70 trillion data points from its in-service aero-engines. This constant sensing and monitoring of every stress and strain in a critical piece of machinery is one reason why air travel has become phenomenally safe.’ Why is this big data led-thinking not applied to other industries and other models?
A global dilemma
There is a sustainability imperative in our world today. The issue of plastics pollution is implicit across the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and companies and consumers must play their part. Furthermore, the consumers of tomorrow — Generation Z — are highly motivated by sustainable behaviours. Forbes reports that 62% of this generation prefer to buy from sustainable brands and are willing to pay more for ethically made products. This is the generation that is currently starting to join the global workforce and to flex their economic muscle.
ESG — Environmental and Social Governance — is increasingly a corporate imperative, too. Delivery company Deliveroo saw more than £2billion wiped off its market value during its IPO in March 2021. Bloomberg reported, ‘Asset managers including Legal & General Investment Management said they wouldn’t buy the stock because Deliveroo’s treatment of couriers doesn’t align with responsible investing practices.’
There is a reputational risk for consumer goods companies in not knowing (or caring) where their products end up. In February 2020, The Guardian reported that Coke, Pepsi, Nestlé, Clorox, Crystal Geyser, Mars, Danone, Mondelēz International, Colgate-Palmolive, and Procter & Gamble were being sued by a California environmental group for ‘creating a plastic pollution ‘nuisance’ and misleading consumers about the recyclability of plastic. The suit argued that companies that sell plastic bottles and bags that end up polluting the ocean should be held accountable for damaging the environment. Earth Island Institute, which filed the lawsuit, says a significant amount of the eight to 20m tons of plastic entering the Earth’s oceans annually can be traced back to a handful of companies, which rely heavily on single-use plastic packaging.’
It is surely only a matter of time before recognisable brands and products crop up in the multiple stories of dead whales found with piles of plastic waste in their stomachs. In 2019, one whale was found to have 40kg of plastics in its stomach.
And the problem is only going to get worse. According to the World Wildlife Fund, ‘Plastic debris is a major threat to marine life, causing death by ingestion, suffocation, entanglement, reduced motility, and both external and internal injuries. Many larger species starve because their stomachs are literally filled with plastic. Increasingly, that plastic finds its way into the food chain. A half-century ago, 5% of seabirds had plastic debris in their stomachs. Today, it’s 90%. By 2050, when the oceans will contain more tons of plastic than fish, that statistic could rise to 99%.
Tekntrash’s assertion — and proposition — is that tracking, tracing and rewarding consumers for better, more sustainable behaviours is a solution both for the industry and the planet.
A data and behaviour-led solution
TeknTrash is one of a small number of companies and researchers who are currently looking at practical and commercial solutions for this dilemma. In 2009, Wired reported on how a research team from MIT planted tags on different types of waste to track their journey through garbage disposal systems in New York and Seattle. According to the article, ‘The tags are wireless monitors, which report the location of each piece of garbage to a central server. This way, the public will be able to view each piece of garbage on a visual map in real time.’
Hyperlocal initiative Camden Recycling in London offers residents rewards for recycling. Participants can receive local discounts, the chance to win vouchers and make donations to local charities. The scheme launched in October 2016 and engagement agency Jump claims that participating residents are recycling 10% more of their household waste year on year.
Recyclos in Spain claims to be the first digital recycling system that seeks to make cities more sustainable while rewarding the public’s commitment to the environment. The Recyclos app enables customers to scan a QR code on participating products before disposing of it in allocated recycling bins. In doing so, the customer will be able to claim points for rewards.
What Tekntrash believes is missing from these models is a data-led commercial aspect. Tekntrash’s proposition is that recycling and sustainable behaviour change can be driven by data — data which can in turn be analysed and leveraged by companies to truly understand their customers and their buying/consumption behaviour. For this to be effective, consumers need to be incentivised.
To this end, Tekntrash has conceptualised the idea of POD — Point of Disposal — and created a device which captures consumption data: stipra.com. Using AI and geolocation technology, Tekntrash’s technology allows for the instant recognition of disposed products and their geolocation. This allows companies to match their sales data to consumption — not only how, but where. Stipra.com enables companies to go even further in their data analysis.
Al Costa explains: ‘Trash is a valuable and untapped source of data, as each product carries a history of consumption which allows better consumer metrics, customer churn avoidance etc. Thus, where, when, who and how is vital data which must be stored. ‘Where’ allows for the company to avoid its products being dumped in the ocean for example. ‘When’ tells the company how long it took for a product to be fully consumed, thus allowing it for example to find tune the amount in the packaging. ‘Who’ allows the company to know its customers better and thus avoid churn and create better products.’
Stipra.com allows companies to create campaigns where they can demonstrate they care about the environment. Through stipra.com, companies can give points whenever their products are disposed of properly through rewards.
Stipra.com is already uncovering insight for FMCG companies in this way. In a particular town where the service is used, stipra.com consistently finds 1,000 products from one company disposed per month. However, the company concerned has no trackable sales there, suggesting that customers are having to travel to some nearby town or are buying the products online (possibly via the grey market). Therefore, there is untapped sales potential.
Stipra.com enables participating companies to know — and be able to prove — that the product has been properly disposed of — thus avoiding potential litigation in the future (as we have discussed above). Al Costa predicts, ‘8 million m2 tons of plastic are dumped in the ocean, so a company which rewards people with money for disposing of its products has a very strong legal argument to avoid or lower down the lawsuits that are sure to come in the near term.’
Ultimately, Tekntrash brings commercial and data-led thinking to a circular economy solution. Its app stipra.com empowers both companies and consumers to track and reveal their consumption and disposal data in meaningful and measure-able ways which are good for business and good for our planet. As Al Costa warns, ‘Data has been called ‘the new oil’, such is its importance. Thus a company which does not use data and does not care about the environment will not be around for long.’