Idea to reduce plastic consumption in Rome

[Mara91]

Hello there I'm Mara, from Rome.

Since I discover and read fastlane and unscripted I started questioning myself about what people needs I would have fulfilled to start my trip to wealth and eternal glory. Of course in 3 months I did nothing.

Last week, coming back walking from the supermarket with 2 six packed plastic bottles under 32 degrees sun I realized that:

1. I hate farmer carry with bottles.
2. Plastic bottles are poisoning our planet
3. Italy is the first consumer in Europe of plastic bottles with 8 billion for year.
4. Some people don't want/can't drink faucet water for medical/taste/diet reason.

So I started looking for services that deliver water source in glass bottles at home and with the next order take back the empty bottles.
I found less than 10 services and

1. No one of them serves Rome zone
2. Just one of or two have a decent site (not abandoned in the early 2010) with basket for easy order.
3. Delivery time is between 2 and 5 days.

Now the "yes yes, but" part

1. There are not competitors because I had a wonderful and absolute new idea or there is not a market? Maybe people is just not interested in a eco-friendly water home delivery service.
2. I would like to reuse the bottles. Some years ago was issued a law to regulate recycling of glass bottles. It states that a bottle can be use max 10 times but say nothing (or maybe I found nothing) about how the bottle must be treated to be able to recycle them.

Maybe I can solve #2 doubt just calling competitors and asking for infos about their system, but how can I test the interest in my idea with a low budget (around 2-3k euros)?

 

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[StefanoUP]

Buongirno Mara,

Welcome on board

Have you checked your idea with the CENTS commandments ?

Grade My Business Idea: Business Ideas and Opportunities Rated Fast

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I personally think it is agreat idea!
My firstquestion would be : how much could you charge people for that service ?
Maybe you shoudl do a market research (flyers in mailboxes or email sent to people in Rome) and assess the interest of Romans.

Buona fortuna !
Stefano.

 

[MTF]

how can I test the interest in my idea with a low budget (around 2-3k euros)?

I have a feeling that this could better work as a B2B service than a B2C one, so I'd find one company that would be interested in this service. Perhaps a construction company, a landscaping company, or another similar type of a business that needs to deliver a lot of water every day to their workers? Or maybe even a company with office workers will be fine, particularly if they want to have an eco-friendly image.

 

[StrikingViper69]

In the UK, we used to have fresh milk delivery. A guy would drive around in an electric cart (like an oversized golf cart) and deliver milk in glass bottles every day.

It might be worth checking your idea against that industry, or finding some people that used to do it to get an inside perspective on it.

 

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[Mara91]

Buongirno Mara,

Welcome on board

Have you checked your idea with the CENTS commandments ?

Grade My Business Idea: Business Ideas and Opportunities Rated Fast

Grade My Business Idea: Rate your business idea and discover its potential for massive marketplace success. Is your business idea worth pursuing? Or should it be forgotten? Based on the CENTS Framework authored by entrepreneur and best selling author, MJ DeMarco.

www.grademybusinessidea.com

I personally think it is agreat idea!
My firstquestion would be : how much could you charge people for that service ?
Maybe you shoudl do a market research (flyers in mailboxes or email sent to people in Rome) and assess the interest of Romans.

Buona fortuna !
Stefano.

Thank you Stefano! Onestly I haven't tought about the price list yet but I was considering to charge the bottles only on the first purchase to encourage susbscription, and then charge just water, delivery and eventually extra bottles. Like this

1 order : 10 bottles price per bottle 3,75 euro (3€ bottle 0,75€ water) delivery 3,99€

10*3,75+3,99= 41,49

2 order: 12 bottles, all the first 10 bottles will be returned

2*3,75+10*0,75+3,99=18,99

I know is an high price so I considered to use km 0/premium sources of water with eternal youth property and sell it to a premium audience.

I have a feeling that this could better work as a B2B service than a B2C one, so I'd find one company that would be interested in this service. Perhaps a construction company, a landscaping company, or another similar type of a business that needs to deliver a lot of water every day to their workers? Or maybe even a company with office workers will be fine, particularly if they want to have an eco-friendly image.

Here in Italy offices usually rent dispenser, bar and restaurants of course have their providers, i can try with construction companies!

In the UK, we used to have fresh milk delivery. A guy would drive around in an electric cart (like an oversized golf cart) and deliver milk in glass bottles every day.

It might be worth checking your idea against that industry, or finding some people that used to do it to get an inside perspective on it.

well fresh milk delivery is awesome (I love milk)

 

[Pink Sheep]

The idea is good, but i think its too much effort to opt in for the average person.

Here in Norway we have one of the highest recycling rates of plastic bottles, simply by having a value on every single bottle you buy. If the drink costs €4, youll pay 4 + 3 = 7 total.
And you can get back 3 by returning it empty.
Now, this is a government incentive i believe, however, people still profit from it in a very clever way.

In most stores there is an automatic collection point for bottles, and customers are able to donate their bottle returns to the red cross. The owner of the collection point catches a share, and sends it off to charity. I believe the owners are getting a 10% annual return on this investment.

I have no idea if you will be able to get stores to collect bottles though. That shit takes time, and they wont do it without either having a law telling them to, or monetary incentive.

Your delivery service just may do the trick for some. Hope you figure out a good system!

 

[Tourmaline]

I don't think consumers care.

Environmentalists care. Everyone else is fine with plastic.

Go test it and see how many you can get to sign up. Find out how many you need to break even, get that many sign ups, and then start.

 

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[arl]

Hi Mara,

I am concerned with that problem too. I don't know where Spain stands on that list, but we defenitelly consume a lot of plastic.
I don't know if people will be willing to pay for delivery of water. I wouldn't want to be storing thousands of liters of water in my home, and for small deliveries the price of delivery would be expensive.

What's wrong with the tap water? Is it really that bad? I'd try to approach the problem in a different way. For example, creating a filtering system that would make the tap water more drinkable.

 

[Monkeycom]

Good luck with your project.
Merging personal interests with ecological ones usually give birth to the most wonderful projects.
I strongly recommend anything written by Yvon Chouinard