Challenge
Disposable vapes are everywhere, and they are growing exponentially in popularity, with 2 disposable vapes thrown away every second. Having surveyed more than 100 users and conducting several interviews, we found that the people who use these disposable vapes place value in these used products but find it difficult to recycle them.
Approach
We set out to make returning used disposable vapes accessible and rewarding. This was an enterprise rollout project, with the aim to create a viable business.
We sought to create the right prototypes at the appropriate time so we could effectively communicate and test ideas with the market and stakeholders, explore and quantify commercial potential and develop commercial strategy, identify and mitigate risk, develop and pitch a compelling value proposition to investors/funders.
Solution
The Lupe machine is a purchase point for vapes. While making your payment, you may return one vape to reduce the price by 25p or two vapes to get a discount of 50p. By making the place of purchase also a place to recycle, recycling becomes more accessible. This pricing strategy gives the user a monetary incentive to return the vape and ensures we can profit through the retail of wholesale vapes.
Vape Teardown
We performed a teardown of the most common disposable vapes to identify materials for recycling and possible methods to automate disassembly.
Vape Collection Pilot Experiment
We built a simple box to conduct our experiment which informed us on how many vapes we can collect from the public.
Product Service System
Lupe aims to collaborate with existing vape retailers who will be obligated to recycle their vapes and local councils who are interested in keeping the streets clear of disposable vapes.
