Fall 2024: Plastic Sold, Station Evolution and Community Impact 🍂
As the leaves change, we’re reflecting on an incredible season of progress and growth. A huge shoutout to our Effingham community for helping us recycle enough aluminum to match the weight of a Cessna airplane and enough plastic to make 2,000 jackets. We launched our first-ever Community Report because we’re committed to transparency and accountability. Too often, recycling efforts end up wasted and it can feel futile to keep trying. We’re proud to guarantee that what our customers bring to us actually gets recycled. Stay tuned—our goal is to integrate these insights directly into our product.
🤺 Product Spotlight: Contest Mode
This fall, we experimented with a new feature: Contest Mode. People love a little friendly competition, and it drove us to our biggest month ever across all our metrics. All this growth is especially exciting because it’s through word-of-mouth instead of paid advertising. Thank you to everyone participating— and congrats to our winners, a youth group who will use the funds for an upcoming trip to New Orleans. 🎭
🍾 We Sold Our Plastic Bottles!
We officially sold our first batch of plastic. A major goal of our first recycling station is to work through all the operational unknowns (and unknown unknowns) of collecting and selling material. We’ve learned a lot about the logistics and processing of plastics which is helping us build a better business roadmap going forward.
🚛 1871 Innovation Lab
This season, we joined the 1871 Innovation Lab as part of their Supply Chain Cohort. One focus for us was finding partners to help optimize our logistics costs by taking advantage of empty backhauls—trucks that deliver goods and then return to their hub or warehouse empty.
We also had the chance to meet incredible innovators, including the co-founder of UnitMOQ, a platform for custom and micro-batched products. Fun fact: one of those micro-batched products is my all-time favorite purse!
🎚️ Technical Spotlight: Station V2 Progress
We’re making exciting progress on Station 2, which will be designed to fit into any parking lot. To elevate the design, we’re collaborating with a production art house to refine the look and feel of the station. We’re excited to deliver a sleeker, even more user friendly experience incorporating our learnings from the pilot.
🔮 Looking Ahead: Resin… University?
Is your alma mater looking for creative ways to help student groups fundraise? We’re looking for interested college and university partners to trial a Resin station in a parking lot of their campus and to use our fundraising tools to boost impact. Reach out for more details.
🔉 Help Us Grow
Stay Connected: Subscribe to this blog if you'd like to follow our journey
