Link to Student
Journal Entry For
Project 1 - Domain / Area of Opportunity
The domain that I’d like to focus on is….
I would like to focus on reducing waste thru changing human behaviors.
- For example, I will admit that I currently have poor composting discipline.
- My excuses include:
- lack of space in limited studio apartment
- poor smell when the bag is full for extended period
- If there were an economic incentive, such as a weighing mechanism to enhance compliance, I would be more motivated to partake.
- Further, if the bag were to tie itself (such as after midnight), it would mitigate my concern over smell.
This area is important/interesting to me because….
There’s a substantial opportunity to reduce landfill usage thru recycling and effective composting.
This also has follow-on effects of reducing carbon emissions from transport and manufacturing disposable items.
I notice this when working in general assembly. The amount of expendable packaging used to transport parts to a vehicle factory can cost up to thousands of dollars per car.
Product Idea: Smart composter with sensor to detect contamination and bag tying feature
6/30 Office Hours with Colin
- Discussion to gain context on issue:
- Theo: Has friends that compost from end-to-end, but it requires a lot of space. Typically those who do this have lots of land.
- Vittorio: In Italy, there is standard practice to take food waste out to specific bins.
- Look on Amazon to see if there are products that have functionality similar to idea: Appears to be a smart composter for $499 that grinds and compacts your compost
- Price seems high for target market: more than ticket from SF to NY ($400) and half as much as an iPhone ($900-1000)
- Might not address the smell concern
- Might not detect plastic or metal contamination
- Idea that Coffee grounds are in high demand; people go to coffee shop to get grounds to add to their compost
- Potential pivots: Sort out waste (copper, other valuable metals), marketplace for construction extras
