Collaboration with the city of Mechelen and the Belgian organizations "Citamine" and "Glimps". The goal of this brief was to design new services and service touchpoints of De Kwekerij (The Nursery) which will stimulate the circular economy in the city of Mechelen in Belgium as well as to create new experiences that will encourage actions of individuals and stakeholder groups.

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Description of proposed solution:

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The city of Mechelen annually produces 4 tons of coffee grit, which is currently being disposed of as residual waste. Having that in mind we based ourselves on the need to devise the best solution for the city of Mechelen as well as its inhabitants on what is the most rational thing to do with the coffee grit.

 

Our team’s goal was to find a solution with focus on mobility, flexibility, something that is affordable and most important of all, stimulate the circular economy in the city of Mechelen. Our story begins with the protagonists which in this case are the inhabitants. The inhabitants will start to collect their coffee grit in their households.

 

You may ask ‘How will they find out about this activity’. Well very easy, through our communication channels such as flyers, posters and stickers. Flyers will be delivered in their mailboxes, posters hung on the windows of the coffee bars and restaurants as well as stickers sticked on the doors and tables at the same locations. The inhabitants will drop their collected coffee grit to the weekly market every Saturday.

 

This small step of collecting the coffee grit is essential for growing mushrooms. At the weekly market people will find our drop-off bike which will be managed by the bike driver. For every delivered pack of 200g coffee grit, every inhabitant in return will receive a stamp on their loyalty card. The loyalty card will be given to the inhabitants at our drop-off bike. Once you have five stamps on your loyalty card, the inhabitant can use that card to purchase a box of fresh mushrooms with a discount. But even without dropping coffee grit any person walking by can purchase a box of mushrooms, which are cultivated in our nursery.

 

The nursery is the central point in our story. In it the coffee grit will be stored and used for growing mushrooms. In order for the mushrooms to have the proper conditions, we created a modular nursery system with low budget hubs. Inside our nursery three hubs will be placed for the different stages of growing mushrooms.

 

However, our story does not end here, besides the weekly market, the bike driver will collect the coffee grit from the coffee bars and restaurants in provided containers. Last but not least, in order to make our story even more attractive, we include the companies and organizations to also gather the coffee grit in provided containers which will also be picked by our bike driver.

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