Binify
Binify is a service that closes the reverse supply chain of plastic by collecting good quality household plastic waste and rewarding their users.
This would result in the responsible recycling of plastic, prevent accumulation of plastic waste in households, and closing of the consumption loop.
Service Design: Siddharth Dutta, Shruti Unnikrishnan, Sanjana Jadon, Pankti Patel
UI/UX: Siddharth Dutta
Visual Identity: Siddharth Dutta
Key Words: Recycling, Design Research, Digital Design, Service Design

Every time one buys a cosmetic product, there would be an empty container which would need to be disposed off. Imagine the empty plastic containers casually lying around in our homes after we are done using them, and multiplying that with the number of homes that use such products.
This thought was our driving force to pick this project.
Secondary Research
We gathered articles and data into a research wall, to better understand the ecosystem of recycling in India and gathered key insights on why some things aren't working out, what some brands have started to do now, and current recycling services that are already present today. This gave us a direction on how to proceed with the primary research.


"India generates 5.6 million tonnes of plastic waste annually"
"India's segregation and recycling system operates through an informal chain of workers -from ragpickers who sort through waste to dealers who sell the plastic to plants"
"The problem of packaging is compounded by the use of mixed material - paper, fabric or metal fused with plastic - that makes recycling exceptionally tedious."
Some FMCG companies have started to make an effort of collecting back the waste containers. However, it is harder to implement in India, and we found out why, from primary research.
Qualitative Research
We conducted 5 interviews to get insights on the various aspects of the eco-system of plastic recycling. The conducted interviews were of a:
1. Person who doesn't recycle waste
2. Person who recycles waste
3. Waste collector
4. Person from Saahas - a waste collecting and segregation agency
5. Plastics expert to gain insight into plastic manufacturing

"...mostly give newspapers and glass bottles to the raddiwaala. Don't know from where I get it recycled from. Throw away the plastic bottles in the trash..."
"...we have a private recycler that collects all the trash from the apartment complex; doorstep service. We have to segregate the waste..."
"...present informal waste collection system tends to cut corners; not many formal recycling facilities..."
"...there is a gap in the reverse supply chain of plastic in India..."
"...people in India are used to the system of getting money in return to selling their junk to raddiwala. Therefore, it is counter-intuitive for the general population to pay an agency to come, segregate their waste and recycle it..."
"...The kinds of plastics used in packaging is always a mix of virgin plastic with recycled plastics and other compounds (wood dust, tea dust, carbon etc.)..."
"...The recycled plastics are bought from the scrap market. The higher the grade, lower the quality and price of selling..."


The fact that a huge quantity of good quality recyclable plastic containers end up in landfills or get distributed through an informal chain of workers, presents an opportunity to use them as a resource.



Design Brief
To create a recycling service of personal care and cleaning product packaging to manage waste accumulation at home and closing the consumption loop.
Based on the above statements we proceeded to do rapid ideations in order to generate a volume of ideas and possible solutions. Then we went about debating about the possible solutions to move forward with.


Binify is a service that collects waste plastic containers from homes and rewards the users by giving them coupons to purchase those products from their favourite e-commerce stores.
The source of revenue for the service comes from selling the good quality plastics to recyclers/manufacturers, and by letting e-commerce platforms show personalised suggestions to users based on their used products.


Service Model

Binify Application
The end user is connected to the service through the mobile application. This lets them manage all the touch points of the service.






Visual Identity
The visual identity is inspired by the malleability of plastic. The word-mark along with the symbol is inspired from the the process of recycling itself.
The choice of colours takes inspiration from the synthetic nature of plastic and differentiates the brand from other environmentally-conscious brands.
