PLUG AND PLAY 2 ZERO WASTE

The challenge

Every year, festivals, concerts, and tourist hotspots generate hundreds of tons of plastic waste. Over 70% of this waste comes from single-use plastic drinking containers, in particular the 0.5L beer cups, which raises significant environmental concerns and urges us to re-evaluate our choices.

The plastic footprint of a festival with 45,000 visitors is:

• 27,000 single-use plastic cups

• 300 kg of plastic waste just from cups (sizes 0.2L / 0.3L / 0.5L)

• 10,000 liters of plastic volume (yes, that’s like filling a small swimming pool)

• The amount of single-use plastic cups equals the plastic waste that the average family generates in 4 years, nearly 1.5kg/day

So, it all started with a simple question, “How can we enjoy our social gatherings without jeopardizing our comfort, our experience, and natural ecosystems?”

Our solution

So, challenge in hand, we developed the PLUG AND PLAY 2 ZERO WASTE, a fully scalable and circular solution, designed for seamless event integration. PLUG AND PLAY 2 ZERO WASTE offers biobased and biodegradable 0.5L cups and bottles that can be cleaned on-site in a closed-loop cleaning infrastructure, and be safely reused, while retaining their durability and quality.

Technical specifications

• Reusable cups: 0.5L biobased-biodegradable cups for water and beer, designed for over 100 uses, dishwasher safe, recyclable, made by bio-polyesters, EE 10/2011.

• Reusable bottles: 0.3L glass bottles, ISO 22000 TÜV HELLAS

• UX/UI smart tracking: The mobile application uses NFC/QR/Barcode scanning for user identification, performance tracking, and integration with business operations, enabling real-time monitoring and management.

Why use PLUG AND PLAY 2 ZERO WASTE?

• Modular and scalable: The system is portable and composed of modular units for easy installation and arrangement. This means that it can adapt to different event sizes, waste volumes, and reuse goals, ensuring efficient integration with existing event logistics and broad accessibility for all hospitality and entertainment sectors.

• Circular: The system completes the circle for the collection, cleaning, and redistribution of reusable cups and bottles, using nature-based water treatment technology.

• Based on nature: The cleaning infrastructure uses our vertECO® technology, a vertical wetland system that treats greywater by using the natural microbiological processes in the plants.

• Smart: Organizers and visitors can track packaging usage, reuse rates, and their environmental footprint through an intuitive mobile application and web platform.

• Flexible: The system is available in flexible leasing models, based on demand.

Who is it for?

We developed PLUG AND PLAY 2 ZERO WASTE for sustainability-minded organizers with big or small audiences. Whether you’re hosting 500 or 50,000, this plug-and-play model integrates seamlessly into the event flow, preserving the energy of the experience while removing the waste.

It is made for all commercial and private users, including event organizers, beverage suppliers, venue operators, festival attendees, hotels, tourist hotspots, exhibitions, municipalities, campsites, airports, schools and many more.

Be part of the solution

As festivals and events grow in size, popularity and needs, their environmental impact has become a pressing issue that demands growing innovation capabilities. As we want our solutions to serve real life challenges, we invite you to become part of the solution by participating in our 10-minute online survey. By answering the survey, you will help us better understand the growing challenges of your industry so that we can advance our solutions in plastic waste reduction and management. Go to the online survey.

Our partners

We developed PLUG AND PLAY 2 ZERO WASTE within the REMEDIES project, a Horizon Europe innovation Program, co-funded by the European Union, aiming to protect water ecosystems, reduce pollution and develop a climate-neutral blue economy.

For the development of the PLUG AND PLAY 2 ZERO WASTE, we partnered with Bio-Mi (Research partner: material development), AITIIP (Technical partner: injection molding), CIBOS (IT partner: mobile application), and NTUA (Scientific partner: water quality monitoring & evaluation).

Find out more about PLUG AND PLAY 2 ZERO WASTE.