Glassic
glassic – What are we doing?
At glassic we are fighting the plastic pollution by tackling it directly at its root cause. We do so, by integrating the triple bottom line of sustainability: People, Planet and Profit!
- We fight the plastic pollution by offering reusable, affordable products. (Profit)
- Next to offering sustainable alternatives, we handle the plastic waste that is already out there by supporting beach clean-ups and waste management. (Planet)
- Beyond creating jobs, we engage in education to raise, long-lasting awareness for the problem itself and how to handle it. (People)
The problem – Why are we doing this?
We probably don’t have to tell you that plastic pollution exposes a severe worldwide problem, especially on those countries where the plastic waste cannot be managed in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. Nevertheless, here are some shocking but scientifically based numbers.
- Worldwide over 380 million tons of plastic are produced per year.
- Over 8 million tons of plastic garbage are leaked into the ocean annually – that’s more than one garbage truckload every minute!
- As a result, every year 100 million marine animals die solely because of plastic waste.
- And without taking immense action, there will be more plastic in our oceans that fish by 2050.
Our concept – How are we tackling these problems?
We establish a company on the island of Ko Kut, Thailand, which replaces disposable water bottles with reusable glass ones. This directly avoids plastic waste generation.
In concrete terms, we treat water from a local spring, fill it into glass bottles and distribute them to our customers, the hotel industry and the gastronomy. The empty bottles are then collected, cleaned and refilled by our provided logistics service.
On the one hand our goal is to invest the generated turnover in the growth of our project to effectively and holistically fight the plastic problem. On the other hand, we directly support sustainability projects in alignment with the sustainable development goals. For example, we cooperate with the local NGO “TrashHero” to support them with clean-ups and awareness creation.
Project Status – What did we achieve so far?
After experiencing the huge problem that plastic pollution exposes to the marine ecosystems as well as the local communities during travels in South East Asia, the idea behind glassic was born.
On past trips to the island of Ko Kut, we established contacts to first partners like Dee, the communications coordinator of Soneva Kiri, a sustainable luxury resort and Kittiphat, who is now our partner on-site.
During our market research on the island, we also gathered valuable insights into the market which helped us to improve our business plan. With the support of our partners, we found a water source as well as land where, thanks to additional funding, we were able to build our own facility on.
On our third project journey, we enhanced our thai network, held sales pitches and also acquired our first customers. On account of their daily demand for high-quality water, we will be able to implement a self-sustaining business.
After we now shipped our sponsored crates and bottles to Ko Kut, we are ready to install the machinery in our building and to kickstart our business!
Project Roadmap – What are our next steps?
To be able to produce water in our facility, the installation of the machinery by our supplier EcopureWaters is planned for May 2021. Afterwards, we have to ensure the quality of our product and arrange all necessary approvals.
As soon as our production side fulfills all requirements, we go into the Beta-Phase. In this phase we not only test all our business processes and perform first customer tests, but we also recruit and onboard our first local employees.
To prepare the start of our business, we validate our business model and all processes in real life. In addition, we conclude customer contracts. If everything is set, we are excited to start operating our business in October this year. The goal is also to have founded a legal entity till then – the glassic Limited.
The glassic family - The people behind the project
Patrick Bombik, Anna Neumann, Alina Iskander, Metehan Uskar, Aisha Schuhegger, Fabienne Le
Contact: glassic@muenchen.enactus.de
