Packaging accounts for up to 40% of all plastic products. Every time we go grocery shopping we fill our cart with this material, which no one likes but is still ubiquitous in our daily lives.
Bringing bags from home and preferring glass or paper packaging is important, but not enough. That is why MIWA has developed a unique technology to prevent packaging waste.
In a world that produces tons of waste, the founder of MIWA (an acronym that stands for “Minimum Waste”) argues that recycling alone is no longer enough. It makes more sense to “stop the waste before it happens”. his approach is called pre-cycling, and is nothing more than the ecological declination of the better-known saying “prevention is better than cure”.
MIWA’s smart-packaging shopping system can be applied to any store, making it universal and easy to shop without waste. This technology has also won numerous international awards, including the New Plastics Economy Innovation Prize. Let’s find out how it works!
How MIWA works:
Based on the principle of circular packaging, MIWA provides manufacturers of food and various kinds with reusable, intelligent capsules. Inside the capsules are hygienic pouches, which stay sealed during the whole process to maintain a high standard of hygiene when filled with the chosen product.
Once filled with pasta, cereal, etc., capsules travel to physical stores, where they will be placed on the appropriate shelves designed to dispense the product in a convenient and smart way.
What is the most innovative part? The data center: each capsule is virtually monitored by the MIWA system so that no packaging escapes from the distribution loops to the environment. Besides, the retailer will be automatically notified of empty capsules that need to be replaced.
In addition, being equipped with radio frequency identification tags, no capsule can escape recycling. In fact, circularity is the “backbone” of the MIWA project, which reuses capsules as much as possible and then recycles them.
The environmental impact of smart-packaging shopping:
A life cycle assessment (LCA) study compared the environmental impacts of the MIWA system to current conventional packaging. The results show that the overall carbon footprint can be reduced by 47-62% and the overall environmental impact by up to 71%.
These figures take into account that MIWA succeeds in preventing waste during shopping and the production chain by eliminating wrappers starting with the manufacturer.
Today, MIWA stores are located in Prague, Switzerland, and France. Mirek Lizec, executive director of the company, says Miwa’s mission is “to make smart-packaging shopping the new normal”. That is why the innovations are continuous and increasingly ambitious. From the consumer app to the reusable “Miwa Cup” that customers bring directly from home, the evolution of this start-up is unstoppable.
Next time you go to the supermarket try counting how much plastic packaging and cling film you take home, this little exercise may make you want to look for a draught store near you.
Even if only once in a while, buying in bulk is an excellent practice for the environment and allows us to buy only the quantity we really need, thus saving money and cutting waste.
