One Page Summary

The presented solution intends to reduce the use of plastic bags in all processes involving online shopping.

The big challenge is to find an alternative to the use of the bags that guarantees the compliance of Food Safety regulations and that is financially feasible.

The problem and awareness of the society to the problem of the environmental impact of the use of plastic bags has been creating in the packaging materials industry incentives to develop new materials alternative to the plastic bag. We are confident that the future will be promising in the proliferation of new materials. Our solution aims at eliminating the need to use plastic bags from the start and is also a vehicle for logistic facilitation of the use of these new materials for the, expected, near future.

Plastic bags have had a very popular global use due to their characteristics of:

• easy-to-use
• lightweight
• comfortable handles
• ability to take the form of the goods transported
• and low cost. 

These characteristics allow easy logistics and competitive alternatives are difficult to find. For this reason, our exploration for alternatives is at the logistics level.

Our solution is based on the principle of the 3R's, seeking to implement a logistics solution that eliminates the use of plastic bags for the deliveries of products purchased in online commerce services and delivered to customers' homes.

However, we are aware that the greater transformation in the use of plastic bags puts itself at the level of citizens' awareness, being this a long-term process. In the short term, we want to offer solutions that provides businesses and consumers a viable alternative, complemented by awareness-raising actions for the active participation of consumers in new operational processes.

We believe that the best alternative to eliminate immediately the use of plastic bags is the use of returnable and reusable transport boxes.

We propose to implement transport boxes that fully replaces the plastic bags. Each box replaces the use of several disposable bags.

The boxes will be produced for to provide an original solution to the challenge, that is not available in the market presently.

The boxes are used to carry the goods to customers home. Different insulation materials allow to transport perishable and non-perishable goods, ensuring food safety requirements compliance. The boxes stay in the customer's house and are exchanged in the next delivery, when they are returned to be reused.

We call this operation "pooling", because the boxes circulate in a "closed-loop" circuit, supporting a reduced environmental impact and a more sustainable and circular economy.

How it works?

Actors and activities in the process are described in the following table: