GreenToGo Pizza

The Problem

Takeout food and delivery are highly convenient services, but they produce large amounts of trash from disposable and non-recyclable containers. This is particularly true for pizza, one of the USA's favorite delivery foods. Americans order two billion to-go and delivery pizzas each year. Greasy cardboard pizza boxes pose significant challenges in the recycling industry not only because they are not recyclable, but also contribute to recycling contaminations and inefficiencies. In fact, this is one of the leading causes in the decline growth of the recycling industries as they are constantly losing profits from their business. Pizza boxes can be composted, but another challenge is the lack of infrastructure to handle this waste with composting facilities are only available within 37 states. As such, the vast majority of these ubiquitous greasy boxes most likely end up in our nation’s landfills, breaking down very slowly and anaerobically while driving global climate change and greenhouse gas emissions in landfills. To make cardboard pizza boxes, millions of trees need to be cut down, which removes the world's natural carbon storage ability if trees are not sustainably managed. All of this is entirely preventable, yet no reusable pizza box option that is scalable and will help restaurants save money exists thus far. We aim to change that and provide a trash-free solution to reduce waste produced and save restaurant owners money.

Our Proposal

GreenToGo Pizza aims to be a city-wide reusable pizza box service that provides a solution to the unrecyclable, disposable pizza box problem. We would create a reusable pizza container where restaurants pay a restocking service fee to receive clean, sanitized containers that their customers use. Customers order their pizza to-go and can request it in a GreenToGo Pizza container rather than pay a higher disposable container fee. When finished with their pizza, the customer can choose to drop off the container at a return station located at our participating restaurants or request a door pick-up for a small fee. The dirty containers are brought back to a washing facility where they are cleaned and sanitized. GreenToGo then redistributes the containers to pizza restaurants to repeat the process, thus facilitating the reduction of disposable pizza boxes in the long run. As customers use the service more often, they are rewarded and choose to either 1) earn coupons or 2) "do your slice for society" by choosing to donate their rewards to partner causes. A majority of the costs would be paid for by business sponsorships who pay to have their advertisements on the container. Restaurants pay a small fee to retrieve a certain number of containers that can be put on the consumer. We would design a box for this service that would be durable, able to maintain the warmness and crispiness of pizza, and aesthetically pleasing to encourage people to partake in a waste-free pizza movement.

We Assume that...

1. We assume that if we create a waste-free option that is also more durable and will keep pizza hotter for longer, then people will choose to use it over the current disposable cardboard pizza box.

8. We assume that we will recover most of our reusable pizza boxes to maximize environmental benefits and minimize the need to purchase new reusable containers.

7. We assume that we will be able to handle the volume and circulation of reusable pizza boxes along with the current GreenToGo container service.

6. We assume that pizza restaurants will be willing to use and potentially pay for our reusable pizza boxes.

5. We assume by having their information for a potential penalty for not returning the container within a certain time frame can ensure maintaining a high return rate within a reasonable time period.

4. We assume that by requiring credit card information to use the container will not substantially limit who has access to the pizza container service or deter people from using it.

3. We assume that if we get enough pizza customers to use the service, restaurants will be saving money by not buying disposable containers, and will want to use our service more.

2.We assume that if we have customers pay a small fee, but are rewarded for their actions to choose the waste-free container, then people will choose it over a cardboard box.

Constraints to Overcome

We have two barriers that we need to address. First, changing consumer behavior to use reusable pizza containers. The container industry has made the use-and-throw-away model so convenient and ubiquitous for people that makes it challenging to influence consumer behavior and promote the transition to a reusable option. Within the scope of behavior change,we need to figure out if people are willing to adopt a product and service that is better for the environment when they can receive a different, single-use, convenient option for free with no extra effort. The second barrier is that we have designed a container, but we need to know from a manufacturer the feasibility of producing this container which may take 12-18 months till it is ready for manufacturing and have the funds to produce it. Also, it is important to ensure that the physical container can withstand multiple uses.

Current Work

We have identified three potential materials (silicone, polypropylene, and stainless steel) that could be used for our design. These materials have been identified for fitting our key criteria: durability, longevity, high heat index, maximum material health, and maximum recyclability. We have conducted focus group sessions with a total of 20 people to help us with iterating our container design as well as what they would envision for seeing the reusable service operating. We have consulted experts to help us with identifying what may be issued within the manufacturing process and how the container can be redesigned to be easily manufactured as well as easy for the customer to use. We have been able to obtain a physical prototype for a 16-inch pizza but still have flaws within aesthetics as well as not easy for all customers to understand how to open and close the container as seen within the focus group session.

Current Needs

We need to find a manufacturer that will be able to design our container. From consulting a manufacturer, we can have a better estimate of how much it would cost to have the container design and if it is possible to incorporate multiple materials within one container and ensure maximum recyclability at the end of its lifetime. Ideally using materials from old, worn-out to building new pizza containers. As we are looking for a manufacturer, we would still like to get more feedback from pizza restaurants, pizza consumers, and expert designers and manufacturers to ensure that we make a suitable, well-designed product.