Venture Concept No. 2 (29A)

1)Opportunity

My opportunity is that in most student housing there are trash rooms with trash chutes, and the recycling bins are usually placed in a different, less convenient area. Many college students either would like to recycle more but do not because it is inconvenient for them, and/or are very passionate about recycling and would like it to be more accessible. The increasing awareness of global warming and it impacts are creating this opportunity. Demographically I think this is something people my age (college students) are most passionate about. Customers are currently satisfying this need by either going out of their way to recycle or by just throwing their recyclables in the waste. From those that I have talked to that are passionate about the environment say that they would love for their recycling to be easier/more accessible. Others said that they would recycle if it was just as accessible as the trash chutes in the building. I believe this opportunity is big because it is an issue people are worried about globally. This window of opportunity will be open until global warming is no longer an issue, and at this point that does not seem like anytime soon.
Innovation

My innovation that sprouted from this need is installing recycling chutes (next to the trash chutes) into student housing off and on university campuses. This will make it easier for people to recycle and encourage those who do not recycle at the moment to start doing so. How it would work is that instead of having multiple trash chutes (or just one chute just for trash) the building would be built with one chute labeled for regular trash and one labeled for recycling. The recycling chute mechanics would work the same as the trash chute (put trash in and it goes down the chute to the dumpster), but instead of it going to a dumpster, it would go to a recycling bin. The most practical way for me to make money with this would be with a patent on the product because I am not a contractor and do not have the skills or knowledge on how to build chutes (or anything in construction for that matter). Because I do not have this knowledge I am not sure how much it would costs to build this, so I would be selling the idea (and the use of this idea) rather than making money off of making the product myself. 

Venture Concept 

This innovation addresses this opportunity because it encourages people to recycle and makes recycling just as accessible as throwing away waste. People will buy our innovation if the students/residents demand it. If this is installed in the on campus housing (like dorms) it may help raise the school's green ratings. It would be very difficult to get schools and buildings to switch to this product unless they were building a new building or if they had multiple chutes and could turn one of them into a recycling chute. I do not believe that there are any competitors but the people/school who own the buildings would have to be willing to do it. At this point I do not see how packaging, price points, distribution, customer experience, or business location play in defining my business concept. However, customer support is very important because those who own the buildings must see that this is something that people want and are demanding. I think the business would be relatively small because we would not be the ones actually building the chutes. It would most likely consist of me and a small legal team for the patents, idea, and use. I would also do my best to reach out to officials to see if they can make a law that recycling bins must be as accessible as the trash bins/chutes are.

The Three Minor Elements

My most important resource will be the support from those who demand better recycling in their student housing off and on campus. My "unfair advantage" is that people are demanding change to prevent more negative impacts on our environment and those who are passionate about this (which is a lot of people) understand that this means starting with the small things like recycling. 

What's next for my venture would be going to university housing and showing them this idea and convincing them to implement them. After that I would go to universities across the country and encourage them to do the same. I would also do my best to build a prototype or at least find a way to show how the chute would work in a video.

For me, I hope to help reduce our carbon footprint with this project and hopefully with other projects as well. This first venture would help me get involved in the sustainability field.

2) For my first Venture Concept I only received one comment of feedback on my post. She thought that I had not put much thought into the idea itself but that I had explained it well. She also said that she had thought of a similar idea but was turned away by UF housing. She seemed to think that the recycling chutes would not encourage those who do not recycle to start recycling. On my What's Next post I received two comments. The first, thought that sticking to the legal side of things and building a prototype were good ideas. He thought the prototype could potentially attract investors. The second, liked that I interviewed people in different housing situations to get all the different perspectives.

3) Based on what I learned from the feedback I received, I changed the "Three minor elements" to include a prototype or video that would show how the chute worked. I also added to the "Venture Concept" section that I would work to get a law passed requiring recycling bins to be as accessible at trash bins.
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