Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Reducing Recycling Volumes through Efficient Reuse
EPA Contract Number: 68HERC240024Title: Reducing Recycling Volumes through Efficient Reuse
Investigators: Mueller, Ulrike
Small Business: Recirclable LLC
EPA Contact: Richards, April
Phase: I
Project Period: December 1, 2023 through May 30, 2024
Project Amount: $100,000
RFA: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) - Phase I (2024) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
Description:
The goal of this project was to develop an innovative approach to expand reuse in food service takeout and reduce the burden of single use containers entering waste and recycling streams. Nearly 1 trillion disposable food service products are used each year in the United States (source: Upstream Solutions). To increase reuse adoption, we set a goal of making borrowing reusables as quick, easy and familiar as order payment. To accomplish this, we developed simple and affordable terminals to enable reuse, by repurposing older generation Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled technology. The approach aimed to tackle single use waste, as well as extend the useful life of older generation electronics and reduce the over 5 billion mobile phones which become electronic waste each year (source: International Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum).
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
We successfully developed a reuse terminal leveraging older mobile phone technology, allowing users to borrow items without needing to download an app. This innovation ensures that first-time customers can complete the borrowing process in under 10 seconds. Our project confirmed the technical feasibility of repurposing older generation mobile phones to create a straightforward reuse terminal, suitable for any food service organization. This approach not only extends the life of older devices, but also provides a cost-effective solution for small businesses.
Another focus area was mounting and securing the reuse terminal. We researched the market and were pleasantly surprised to discover several suitable options for device stands already available on the market. We market-tested stands and our findings indicate that the available device stands are practical, affordable, and fit well within the varied operational requirements of food service providers. We will continue to validate this through sustained testing of device stands.
We conducted usability testing as part of the design process, interacting with a diverse set of food service providers and customers to inform our design. This testing demonstrated the value of the tap approach from three perspectives:
- It eliminates time-consuming and network-intensive app downloads.
- Customers without smartphones (yes, they exist, as confirmed by our testing) or who forget them can still choose reusables with just a credit card.
- The terminal captures reuse interest and turns it into immediate action: At one community event, this approach enabled us to offer reuse to a customer base that was over 80% new to reuse and to serve nearly 20% of all orders in reusables, with voluntary participation. The ease of jumping in and reusing was much greater with the terminal compared to downloading an app, which creates too much friction for first-time reuse 'on the fly'.
Based on this success, we intend to continue validating at more events. Achieving 20% adoption on a voluntary basis was encouraging, and with the speed of the borrowing process, we see potential at events or locations that may choose to push reusables further.
Early testing demonstrated the reuse terminal to be most effective as the sole borrowing method in large-scale settings, rather than as an optional alternative to the app method in smaller food service settings. For example, at one of our long standing restaurants, we've had limited traction with the terminal, as staff are already familiar with the app-based approach, and adding an alternative may cause more confusion than traction. We will continue to explore how to better educate and leverage the terminal to incentivize and onboard more new re-users in different food service settings.
The final issue we addressed was locking down the terminal to a single app and managing remote terminal updates. This ensures the phone is easily updated with minimal restaurant intervention and also ensures no risk of misuse. Further work and integration around device management, necessary for a large-scale rollout, is ongoing. We will explore this further in the next stage of developing and commercializing the terminal.
Conclusions:
This project has demonstrated the feasibility of introducing reuse terminals, allowing both new and existing customers to independently check out reusable containers without staff assistance. This aligns with the current app-based borrowing process, where customers manage their own borrowing. Moreover, the terminals are compatible with the Recirclable app, enabling customers to borrow using either the reuse terminal or the app, interchangeably. With this work completed, we see an opportunity to advance the technology further. It achieved our goals of improving the speed of onboarding new customers to reuse, extending the life of older technology, and providing an affordable solution for restaurants and small businesses.
As next steps, we plan to test the system at larger scale events and explore system integrations, to further expedite the borrowing process. For broader commercialization, the technology must be refined to adapt to different food industry sales locations, such as restaurants, student cafeterias, and food trucks, each with slightly different requirements and user interfaces to facilitate reuse. Additional work is required to finalize a scalable approach to device management.
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.