In the recent Reuse Innovation Challenge, which was sponsored by the MAVA Foundation, a shortlist of 6 solutions were pitched to an audience of Pact members. Although only the top three received prize money, all were able to expose their ideas to potential implementation partners, namely the Pact brand owner and retailer members. After the event the Pact team facilitated 13 introductions between the innovators and Pact members for the purpose of exploring the potential to implement their solutions.
Waterpod by i-Drop Water
“Waterpod plans to build and grow the company’s reach to shop-owners looking for a convenient and simple way of selling purified water refills for a sustainable alternative to bottled water in single-use plastics. “It is up to us in business to create convenient and affordable choices for consumers to go single-use plastics free,” said Kate Thiers, CEO of Waterpod by I-Drop.
“Sonke designs, manufactures and manages automated refill stations that encourage shoppers to bring their own packaging – for a discount. Sonke refill machines are fully automated, “smart”, compact and can dispense up to three liquids,” said Eben De Jongh, Founder of Sonke Retail.
For more details on Sonke Retail’s partnership with our members SPAR, please see Sonke’s LinkedIn page.
Green Tap’s Founder Carmen Francke said: “We are very grateful for the opportunity and generosity we have received which will definitely assist our brand growth going forward. We are excited and would like to take some time to put a plan in place as to how we will be spending our winnings but we can say that we will be looking at a community initiative, a marketing campaign, and a new product line.” We would like to encourage any of our other members that could potentially increase their uptake of reusable packaging solutions, to be in contact and we will happily facilitate an introduction.
Some encouragement from the Sponsor: “For supporting a transition towards a circular economy of plastics, it’s crucial to have concerted and collaborative action across actors (businesses, government/local authorities, NGOs) and the value chain – like the South African Plastics Pact – to transform words into concrete actions.”, said Nathalie Cadot, Impact & Sustainability Manager, MAVA Foundation.
