We developed our simplest and cheapest product yet alongside Copenhagen Municipality. Yet, it has made a real difference in its first year on the market.
Waste sorting has become mandatory across the country. This poses a particular problem in small city apartments: How do you fit waste sorting into the limited square metres? We’ve been working to solve this problem with the Municipality of Copenhagen.
Why?
In the City of Copenhagen, food waste is turned into energy. When a citizen fills two bio bags with food waste per week, it produces enough energy to cook 26kg of pasta or take 62 hot showers in one year.
In other words, there are huge benefits to getting citizens to sort food waste. And in fact, the municipality also experienced a willingness to sort food waste. However, an analysis showed that the major barrier to doing this in practice was the accessibility of the bin: if it’s in the cupboard, you can’t just take it out and sort it.
Therefore, The basic idea was that if you can get the food waste bin close to the residual waste bin, you’ve won. And that was the basic idea we turned into
Impact:
The solution to the problem was a rack for waste bins, so the two bins hung side by side. It is a simple and inexpensive solution that is easy to mass produce and cheap to distribute to all citizens.
Since the solution was introduced a year ago, the amount of sorted food waste has increased by many, many tonnes. Of course, it’s hard to say how much of this is due to the rack, but it has certainly been very well received, and many people have embraced the solution; we have received very good user feedback.
The solution is simple, and that’s part of its beauty: When we can develop such a simple product that takes a few seconds to make and costs very little to produce from recycled plastic, the municipality can also give it away to citizens, so it really makes an impact.
Tens of thousands are already hanging around Copenhagen homes. If you haven’t got one yet, you can still order one for free on the website here or pick one up at the municipality’s libraries.
