Prompt #1: What sustainable development goal does the project target? What might be reasonable indicators for those SDGs?
The main sustainable development goal that our project will target is contributing to sustainable cities and communities. We strive to work towards this by repurposing agricultural waste as bio plastic. If we are successful in this, it will contribute to the long term sustainability of each community. We can measure the success of this goal by analyzing the municipal solid waste collected, and how it is used. The less waste that is just thrown in a landfill, will indicate higher success of our project.
Our second goal is to popularize the responsible consumption and production of goods. We hope to achieve this by providing an easily accessible and eco-conscious substitute to traditional plastics. We could measure this through policy changes in the Philippines. What we hope to see is a trend towards banning plastic, and encouraging compostable ‘plastic’ options. Another indicator of our project’s success will be researching domestic material consumption. We hope that there will be a decrease in restaurants’ use of plastic take-out boxes, utensils, ect.
The last sustainable development goal we hope to impact is the effort towards climate change. Some estimates show bioplastic may produce 25% less greenhouse gas emissions than traditional plastics. Although this is a difficult goal to measure results, we could look at overall greenhouse gas emission trends. Not to say that our project alone would have any noticeable effect on these statistics, but in order for change to occur everyone needs to make some effort. We hope our project can make its contribution to the global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the effects of climate change.
Prompt #2: Crystallize the larger challenge the venture seeks to address, the specific problems being targeted, and the kinds of opportunities we hope to leverage.
With the Philippines being one of the leading contributors to plastic waste, the larger challenge our venture seeks to address is to eventually completely eliminate the use of unnecessary plastic and plastic waste to create better environments for all life. A secondary effect/by-product of us acting on this challenge can be a stepping stone towards aiding in climate change, since the switch from plastics will have an effect on the production of pollution. The specific problem in the Philippines we are targeting is the large waste of food products and high amounts of plastic waste from single use food packaging. Not only does this occur in the Philippines but the whole world. We hope to obtain the agricultural waste, specifically corn husks and any other crop waste we are currently researching, from local farmers or other sources. The crops we are currently researching that have potential to manufacture biodegradable packaging are corn and risk husks, banana leaves, and coffee grounds. We hope to connect the problem of high food waste to the high plastic production issue. Choosing food products that are highly wasted in the Philippines, we may be able to develop biodegradable pellets/packaging from them.
Prompt #3: Identify the two most important social, economic, and environmental bottom lines that matter to the project.
- Social-
- Waste management education: The Philippines produces over ⅓ of all oceanic plastic waste in the world. If we can help educate them on more sustainable practices then that can help aid the focus of our project.
- Community collaboration: Since our project depends on our sources of corn husk (or other agricultural waste) and an organization to help build our bioplastic pellets, collaboration is key.
- Economic
- Cost effectiveness: Create biodegradable pellets at a competitive price compared to traditional plastic pellets.
- Revenue Growth: Have a practice profitable enough for it to continue growing when we are not in the country. Although our focus of this project is not to be profitable, making revenue is necessary for us to grow and have a greater impact.
- Environmental
- Plastic pollution reduction: Our goal is to reduce single-use plastic food containers in Manila. A lot of this waste can end up in the ocean which is a problem in the Philippines.
- Pellet production sustainability: Create sustainable and scalable biodegradable pellets from agricultural waste. A repeatable and consistent process of creating these pellets is necessary for it to scale upwards.
Prompt #4: Describe ten cultural factors that might impact the project at various phases in its lifecycle.
- Agricultural waste is already used for other things, such as fertilizer. We will have to make sure that we are not depriving farmers of any materials that they need.
- What is the cost of switching to new products and who will pay it?
- There are currently some environmental policies in place in the Philippines that are aimed at restricting plastic waste. We may be able to use this to our advantage.
- It may be difficult to get groups or individuals to work with us because of lack of trust, so it may be helpful to have local partners that can bring us together.
- There may be cultural differences between people we work with, so we will have to be patient and adaptable.
- When is it socially acceptable to meet with people for business?
- Wealth disparity is a major issue in the Philippines. We will want to make sure our product is easily accessible to all, and does not extenuate this wealth disparity in any way.
- Language barriers could make it difficult to communicate with potential partners.
- How will we address and interact with potential partners?
- How will we travel? Some options are jeepneys (a form of public transportation), walking, or Grab (similar to Uber)