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Make plastic reduction easy & sustainable for personal care/beauty products
Challenge Type: engineering
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$800
top 15
87
submissions
DONE
55 months

Plastic waste is among the top environmental concerns, and people have started to take steps to reduce or remove plastic in several areas of their lives. However, one area that remains neglected is personal and beauty care. Research shows that social visibility of an action plays a role in changing people’s behavior – it creates awareness, signals social desirability and also conveys a sense of community action and togetherness, which is important if are people to believe in the environmental impact of their actions. Social visibility therefore creates both the pressure to act, as well as the reassurance that the action will make a genuine difference because it has scale and is not a solitary individual action.

Plastic use in beauty and personal care is less socially visible than plastic in other areas such as food and beverages. What ideas can you come up with for initiatives that make plastic waste (or reduction in plastic waste) in these categories socially visible? The solutions can be about product or packaging design, retail initiatives, disposal initiatives, communication or social media activation – we welcome any idea that makes people’s behavior (in relation to beauty and personal care plastic) socially visible. The solutions can aim to create social pressure and / or foster a sense of community action and togetherness.

  1.  Re-imagine or redevelop an existing sustainable product or practice (for example, the way shampoo is bought, used and disposed of, or the type of shampoo that is bought) so that it is more socially visible
  2. Propose an entirely new sustainable and socially visible product or practice in  beauty or personal care categories.

***By socially visible we mean anything that has a chance to be observed by others, commented on, emulated and / or stimulate participation. A re-usable water bottle that you carry around with you has high social visibility because everyone in your social environment can see it; recycling has moderate social visibility (there is a chance that neighbors can observe your recycling behavior, or your local council knows how diligent you are); but products you use in your bathroom currently have low social visibility because only your family members or people who visit you have a chance of observing the choices you make.

Deliverables

Propose your sustainable product idea by answering the following:

What is your sustainable product idea?  Tell us specifically which existing product it either improves (i.e. makes more sustainable) or replaces.

  1. Re-imagine or redevelop an existing sustainable product or practice (for example, the way shampoo is bought, used and disposed of, or the type of shampoo that is bought) so that it is more socially visible OR
  2. Propose an entirely new sustainable and socially visible product or practice in   beauty or personal care categories.

THEN

  1. What makes your idea sustainable?  How does it reduce waste, cut down on resource use, conserve energy, save the environment, etc.  
  2. In what way, where and to whom will your idea be socially visible?  

Tips for Top Submissions

  • The more your product impacts daily life, the better.
  • We'd like to stay focused on personal care and beauty products; your idea could be a physical product or an improvement that changes an existing sustainability practice.  
    Submissions will be graded on the following criteria:
  • 1-10 Scale
Reward Tiers
5 Winners
will receive $120 each
10 Honorable Mentions
will receive $20 each
Leaderboard
$120.00 Christopher Adjei-Frimpong University of Mines and Technology, Tarkwa
$120.00 Siddharth Sharma IIM Udaipur
$120.00 Joshua Y. Ansong UMaT
$120.00 Alina Galieva Pedagogical University
$120.00 JAIR LOAIZA Central University
$20.00 Megan Lynch University of Connecticut
$20.00 Andrews Kwesi Ankomahene University of Cape Coast
$20.00 Matthew Gaiser Queen's University
$20.00 Maryam A. University of Illinois at Chicago
$20.00 m .
$20.00 Sudan Gaines University of Illinois Chicago
$20.00 Samantha AbuGhazaleh University of Central Florida
$20.00 Amy Blais University of Ontario Institute of Technology
$20.00 Aman Karwasra CCS Haryana Agricultural University
$20.00 Krishnan Sukumar Madras Christian College
Submission questions


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