In the Sustainable Circular Challenge organised by Ball Beverage Packaging India, a team of six students from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) bagged the runners-up trophy by demonstrating effective ways to reuse aluminium cans. The Thinkers, as they call themselves, has devised an innovative plan of changing the design of the cans to have a reattachable lid to be able to reuse the cans for a couple of more times, considering sustainability can come at a cost in the country like India and packaging can diminish profits.
Bandhan Pramanik from the team of six explained, "In a country like India, sustainability can come at a cost and since packaging can actually diminish profits, we planned to use the existing infrastructure to help them.”
Installing beverage dispensers in public spaces is the next stage that the team has idealised, wherein cans once brought can be refilled and here is where the use of barcodes comes in. Barcodes on the cans ensure that they can be refilled only a certain number of times, keeping health standards in mind.
"Since it's a refill, it costs the customers less to buy another and keeps the manufacturing cost for the companies under control," said Protyay Chakraborty.
These reverse vending machines will also act as collection points for cans and upon dropping them in the bin, consumers will earn points too.
"We can also consider encouraging consumers to segregate these aluminum cans at home, the municipal corporations can collect them and via a partnership between them and the companies, the latter can collect it back from them," explained Bandhan.
These collected cans can be reused by sanitising and cleaning properly, instead of melting them into wires or new cans.
"Currently, you pay about Rs 35 for a can. For a refill, you'll have to pay just Rs 7.68 and even if the company decides to charge Rs 16, which is still very less, they will earn 52% more in profit,'' added Bandhan.
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