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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Waste Compactor (Green Automatic Waste Compactor)

Teaser

Summary

Waste recycling regulations and policies enforce source responsibility, effectively meaning that the person or business that produces recyclable waste is responsible for its proper separation and compacting, usually through use of different separation containers for different materials (plastic, tin, paper, glass, metal, bio, etc.). Municipal services then collect the waste and transfer it to recycling facilities. This service is charged to households and business that generate waste, as fee per certain waste weight or volume. Waste generators are thus obliged to separate the waste and are charged for transfer and process of this waste.
This is becoming problematic especially for hospitality and restaurant industry, hospitals, households, small businesses, convenience stores, retail industry, offices, etc. (hereafter: segment of small waste producers). This segment faces double problem: on one hand, more and more volume of packaging, plastic bags, wrapping materials, etc. is being used, which increases the need for more space for waste separation in rooms, kitchens, warehouses and offices. More space means more costs. Other side of the problem is related to municipal waste management costs. Increased generated waste also means more costs.
To illustrate , while 50-70% of the weight of a foodservice operation\'s garbage consists of compostable waste, food packaging makes up most of the remaining weight of the garbage\'s bins, but account for around 70% of the volume of foodservice trash. Similar is relevant also for households. Living trends (more households due to more singles or couples as opposed to large families within same households; more packaging, protective, wrapping and similar materials; remote shopping that results in more packaging; increasing volume of pre-prepared food; etc.) result in the fact that every EU citizen on average throws away 444 kg of household waste per year, and this figure is expected to increase.
Municipal costs for waste management (collection, transfer, processing) and recycling are very complex and diverse in EU countries and even regions/municipalities within the country. Based on the Study of Municipal Waste management in EU , conservative estimation of monthly costs is 15â‚¬+ (average minimum) per business unit or household within mentioned segment of small waste producers.
According to European Environment Agency, current EU trends in management of waste reflect positive direction towards cleaner and more sustainable environment due to increased recycling, energy recovery and reduced generation of some waste. Efficient management of recyclable waste has gained on EU priority hierarchy. Since every EU citizen on average throws away 444 kg (around 150 kg of those falls to packaging!) of household waste per year, increasing volume of waste and its costs remain by opinion of EU Parliament both ecological challenges and opportunity for circular economy growth and jobs. Our project will address these global challenges and explore new market opportunities, deriving from intersection of eco innovation and detected user needs.

Our main objective is to become leading European R&D player in the industry of waste compressing and compacting. Goals of this innovation project are:
1. To help solving systematic EU ecological problem of increasing waste volume with our technology and its products and contribute to circular economy;
2. To reduce garbage volume (by 80%) and waste management costs (by 40%) for the segment of small businesses and households;
3. To offer universal all-in-one solution for compacting all sorts of recyclable materials (plastic, metal packaging, cans, etc.) in 2 years;
4. To monetize on exploitation of business opportunity in accordance with our strategy for developing global ecological solutions.

Work performed

With successful application to SME Phase 1 we got funding to successfully achieve some important goals on our path to become a leading European R&D player in the industry of waste compressing. To achieve that, we set some major objectives:
1- To confirm our existing prototype of compactor PackPRESS 100 on the EU market;
2- To develop new compactor PackPRESS 50 prototype and confirm it on the EU market;
3- To establish strategic commercialization partnerships for EU market approach;
4- To protect our knowledge and findings with a patent (for Packpress 50);
5- To collect technical and market-related feedbacks and experiences into thorough business plan that will enable us internationalisation and growth.

Dukin undertook a full analysis of technical and business aspects of deployment Waste Compactor on the EU markets.
As we already have a working prototype of PackPRESS 100, we made only few changes to improve functionality and usability of the machine: speed up operating time, upgrades on the drive, improvement on effects of hot air on plastic bottles, noise reduction. For PackPRESS 50, we have built a working prototype, which we have tested internally and with external partners. We made a lot of progress, prototype is working, but some minor technical issues still need to be considered, like noise reduction, tilting of pressing plate under higher pressure end some other small problems. All these technical improvements were responds to detected market needs and technical requirements to meet them.
Together with our coach, Mr. Tallgreen, we defined possible ways how to find relevant contacts/partners. We tried different approaches to find it:
- Direct contact to potential partners (like Gorenje, Bora, Electrolux, Bosch, â€¦). We tried bottom-up and top-down approach.
- Indirect contacts through Slovenian ambassadors and Slovenian Chamber of Commerce.
We also met with the biggest Slovenian municipality waste collector Snaga d.o.o., to learn the problematic of waste collections from their perspective.
We already own an international patent filed at WIPO in 2013 for PackPRESS 100, and are in the standard process for protecting also PackPRESS 50 with a patent. The procedure allows us to file a patent with minimal costs first as national patent -we gain 1 year time to file a patent also in European Patent Office (EPO).
In parallel, with these activities, we established a commercialization plan and performed a detailed analysis of the market (market size, conditions, possible sales channels, trends), which form key part of thorough business plan and a roadmap for further work.

Final results

The main expected result is a developed and ready-to-sell universal waste compactor that will lower ecological burden of increasing waste volume and reduce waste management costs for households and small businesses. We want to scale-up and commercialize our innovative product. Once on market, Waste Compactor will offer significant benefits over current state-of-the-art: less waste volume, less noise, applicability in households, integrated in kitchens, less space needed, lower energy consumption, simple cleaning, to name just few. Besides socioeconomic benefit of strong environmental impact (40% reduction of municipal waste management costs, 80% waste compression, low power needs), Waste Compactor will create new jobs and boost economic growth. What we have discovered and researched in Phase 1, gives us more than enough confirmation that the market for waste compactors is there, and that our way of its exploitation with partnerships can yield great business and environmental results. Such way is also significantly less tiresome for us, because we can gain access to partners\' sales channels and not build them anew.