Problem
Almost all developing and upcoming cities are facing problems with waste management. As areas become more urbanized and the middle class grows, waste generation levels tend to rise exponentially. Landfills are reaching capacity and many cities like Jakarta are now having to deal with the added problem of illegal burning and dumping of trash. Another problem that cities with a green objectives are facing is the waste content itself, which drives recycling down and hinders the cities’ efficiency.
Solution
Totally Green Bottles & Caps have come up with the design of a bottle that is 100% compostable. This includes the cap and label too. They are made from plant-based materials and take around 3 months to compost, adding no toxicity to the Earth. Cities can adopt these to minimize their waste, as plastic water bottles are proving to be a great challenge to address. These bottles can also potentially boost recycling levels and help cities reach their recycling objectives, while other cities that rely on incineration can take advantage of the bottles’ properties that make it incineration friendly as clean burning fuel.
Stakeholders
- Totally Green Bottles & Caps
- Cities
- Manufacturers of material used
- Local farms that can intake compost
- Incineration facilities
- Water bottle users
- Grocery stores
Next Steps
The company is starting to sell the product at a small scale. It is essential to keep records of performances and success and work on improvement using feedback from current consumers. The next step should be pitching the idea to cities and mayor offices with green initiatives like Planyc to start manufacturing and selling the product at a larger scale. Next will be to market the product and try to expand into other economies.
By: Ahmad Al Zubair (aa4098)
Resources used:
- http://totallygreenbottlesandcaps.com/worlds-first-100-compostable-water-bottle-cap-label/
- http://totallygreenbottlesandcaps.com/blog/
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Comment on “A greenhouse that lets you produce crops and electricity simultaneously”
I wonder if the technology can also include sensors that can track plant type and growth rates. This way perhaps the system can further alter the wavelength of the light and “test out” different values to find the optimum environment for these plants and share the data with other greenhouses.
makeasmartcity 
This is a good innovation that can help the situation we are in. The bottle technology has been around for a little while, the but company needed to develop the cap, as that was a roadblock for many industrial composters to start accepting the item.
As a frequent composter, I would like to know more about how the company expects to differentiate these bottles from others that are green – i.e Sprite, as to not confuse those who are not careful about where they put their trash. Additionally, would be great to understand the ideal compost conditions for the 85 day compost time. If we start to get more and more ‘plastics’ and less organics in the compost, will that increase?
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It is very impressive technology considering how slow plastic decomposes. According to the link, “PET plastic takes between 450 – 1000 years to decompose. Most PET bottles end up in a landfill, eventually contaminating lands and groundwater. William Horner, Founder and President of Totally Green Bottles & Caps, believes that the bottled water marketplace is long overdue for a 100% compostable bottle, cap, and label.” This would reduce a lot of waste that could take hundreds of years to decompose. I wonder if there would be any health effects from drinking water out of these bottles all the time.
UNI: AV2698
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I think that these is a great start for the world to see that there still a solution for the problem about plastic bottles. I hope that these compostable water bottles will reach a lot of places. I believe that these can be a solution for the problem with plastic water bottle. Thanks for sharing these article.
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