Disney BH6 XPRIZE Challenge Winners: Helping Consumers Make Environmentally Conscious Decisions
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[Kamran's
BIG IDEA]
[Kamran] Hello,
everybody at Big Hero 6.
My name is Kamran, and I have
an idea for your XPRIZE Challenge.
Here's the problem:
excessive product packaging
leading to too much waste.
According to the US
Environmental Protection Agency,
in 2012,
Americans generated
251 million tons of solid waste.
That's about 4.4 pounds
per person, per day.
While recycling rates
have increased,
we still end up dumping
just over half of our solid waste
into landfills every year.
It may only take paper
2-3 weeks to decompose,
but it takes 450-1000 years
for plastic to decompose.
Here's my solution:
packaging ratings.
Imagine a service that evaluates
how damaging a product's
packaging is to the environment,
and gives a simple rating
so a customer like you
can decide to buy this product
or another product
with a better packaging rating.
I believe
if you give people information
in an easy-to-understand way,
they will make better decisions.
We do it all the time
when it comes to informing people
about what is in a product,
so we can decide
if it's good or bad to eat.
We should inform people
about what's around the product,
so we can decide if it's good
or bad for the environment.
This is where science, math,
and engineering come into play.
This service would get products
of all types—
I'm just using gum
as an example—
and break down the packaging
in terms
of all the important variables,
such as the volume,
degradability,
dimensions,
and its material composition.
Using those variables,
you can rank packaging
based on how good or bad
they are for the environment.
[Most Environmentally Friendly
Gum Packaging]
[Poppazilla: 8.9
Toc Toc: 7.2]
[Gumtastic: 5.3
Gumhorrible: 1.3]
I believe if you do that,
more people will start buying
the products
with better packaging,
and the companies
with more damaging packaging
will have to change.
That's my big idea.
[♪ music ♪]
[That's]
[Kamran's]
[Big Idea!]