4A-Forming An Opportunity Belief

1) My beginning point



I have the belief that there is an opportunity to decrease plastic waste. This belief comes from one of my first experiences in the US. When I went to Publix and Walmart there are plastic bags at every corner. For example in the fruit/vegetable section, then at the deli and finally at the check out counter.

2) Description of my belief.

The unmet need is that we have to be conscious about our environment. You hear politicians and activists constantly talking about earth warming etc. and in my opinion switching to reusable bags is one big step to help our planet.

Basically everyone, especially the people in the next generations (our kids, grandchildren) will benefit and should not suffer from our bad behaviour.

The need has been there ever since we harm our environment (pollution for example) and has become stronger in the last decades. At the moment people are trying to become more aware, but the specific supermarket/grocery store example shows that we are still using the easiest and most convenient but also most dangerous alternative of using plastic bags.

Since I live in Germany and I am here as an exchange student I can state that we have much better solutions back home. Many supermarkets have a policy of the customer having to pay for plastic bags (in general 0,5 dollar for each one) if they did not bring their own reusable bag. Other supermarkets have completely abandoned plastic bags. I am about 70% sure that the US supermarkets can move toward new solutions regarding their plastic bags.

3) Identify the prototypical customer

In general the prototypical customer can be anyone who goes to the supermarket. Especially students have to go grocery shopping all the time, but I also decided to ask one working adult.

4+6. Iteration No. 1+2 (students)

When do they become aware of the need:
Student 1 states that he recognises the need all the time when he goes grocery shopping and also that he feels bad when he throws away the bags at home
Student 2 states that he has never really thought about it because he takes it for granted and has never really thought about the problem since it has always been the case and he thinks it is very normal

When did they first become aware of their need? Why?
Student 1 states that he has seen a documentary on Youtube about plastic waste and since then he is way more aware of the problem. It even made him change his behaviour by not using straws whenever he buys a soda.
Student 2 knows about the problem but has never really thought about it, mostly because it is just ''normal'' in the US to do certain things such as the high usage of plastic bags. 

How satisfied are they with this solution?
When I presented both students the way we do it in Germany they both said that this seems very reasonable and considered it as a good idea. However, they see a problem in the implementation since many people who do not care about the environment would not want to pay for plastic bags.

Iteration No. 1+2 (employed adult)

When do they become aware of the need:
Every time he goes to the supermarket the employed adult notices the need for a better solution when it comes to plastic bags


When did they first become aware of their need? Why?
Ever since the upcoming of concerns about damage to the environment by our behaviour.

How satisfied are they with this solution?
The adult stated that he has traveled for work to Norway and people often use bags made of recyclable paper instead of plastic which is in his opionion the much better solution


5) Reflect

In general I was not really surprised about the results, but I am happy that 2 out of 3 people are very aware of the problem. I think my opportunity is reasonable and feasible, but it would need a lot of effort to change something regarding plastic bags, since the implementation has many steps to overcome.

7) Summarize

I think most of the original opportunity is still there, since it is a topic that concerns basically everyone.
In terms of accuracy I do not think there has been much of the change, since the need is still there and the solutions are the same.
Customer feedback is definitely the most important thing, since customers are in the end the people that you want to address and who create revenue. All in all I think my idea of changing the policy regarding plastic bags could be firstly be implemented in a pilot project to see how customers react.