‘Why My Waimai?’ Rethinking our approach to Takeout Waste

Ever thought about new packaging innovations? Or considered if there is an alternative to all those small plastics items we throw away ever so often? Thought of a revolutionary way to collect and reuse material?

Green Initiatives and OpenIDEO Shanghai Chapter are launching Why My "Waimai", a challenge that looks to drive solutions to some of the most difficult design challenges within the plastics ecosystem.

The Shanghai Context – Why My 外卖

Every day in China millions of orders are placed on food delivery apps. ele.me, single handedly serves an average of 40 million customers per day, and demand for food delivery services are growing at rapid rates throughout China’s cities. All of these deliveries are accompanied by plastic and cardboard containers, much of which are widely recyclable. But, under the current conditions the majority are discarded by consumers and lost to landfill or incineration – wasting valuable resources.

Some of the most problematic are the small consumable items that exist within the take out “portfolio”, such as straws, coffee cups, soy sauce sachets. In many areas of the world the infrastructure is not available to collect these single use items, and innovation is required to reduce their presence and impact.

So how can we use design to drive better system for reuse, reduction, and recycling of single use food and takeout packaging in Shanghai. Through this event we will launch the local challenge, looking to the community to understand the challenges and develop solutions to transform the plastics ecosystem.

Event Itinerary

• 18:30-19:00: Registration, drinks & networking
• 19:00-19:30: Event introduction and expert presentations
• 19:30-19:40: Launch of Circular Design Challenge
• 19:40-20:00: Discussions and Q&A
• 20:00-20:30: Networking

Speaker

Alice Casiraghi, UX Designer, IBM iX Studio
Alice is a user experience designer who lives and works in Shanghai, she developed a strong service design background while studying in Milano Polytechnic University. She is currently working as design consultant at IBM iX Studio. Most of her work revolves around the study and improvement of interactions among people, services, products and spaces.
Besides working life, she is interested in ‘life-applied’ UX, the understanding of cultural diversity, as well as people’s traditions and how complex global issues can be addressed at local scale.

Simon Vogel, Co-Founder, Saucepan
Simon is a Swiss entrepreneur based in Shanghai since 2014. He co-founded Saucepan, an online-to-offline healthy food delivery start-up based in China that aims to bring more transparency to the food supply chain by delivering fresh honest and delicious food. Saucepan also aims to reduce its carbon footprint by reducing its plastic use and offering a 100% biodegradable packaging solution.

Tong Zhao, Manager, Terracycle Greater China
Whether the coffee capsules from households, pens and teaching aids from schools, or the PVG gloves from factories, TerraCycle can recycle almost all kinds of waste. There are more than 60 million people participating in TerraCycle’s recycling projects in 20 different countries, producing 3 billion recycled products.

** The actual challenge and all specific details will be announced at the event.