MyPlasticDairy: The “Fitbit for Plastic”
MyPlasticDiary is a fun and easy to use free app that allows users to track their plastic, understand their footprint and ultimately reduce it.
Solving A Personal Problem Is Solving Problems Of Others
It was created a year ago by Max Korotkov and Alex Zilber, software and product development specialists with a background in fintech. The original idea to build an app for plastic footprint tracking was born out of the personal experience. When one of the founders decided to take practical steps towards reducing the amount of plastic waste in his household, he quickly realized that this was impossible without investing some time in systematically tracking and analyzing his footprint.
After all, such apps have become commonplace for people who want to eat more healthily or exercise regularly – and surely a personal plastic footprint would be useful to people who want to have a healthier relationship with the planet. Out of this idea, the MyPlasticDiary app was born.
Things have progressed a lot since the initial release of the app – it has been downloaded over 2,000 times by users from the UK and US to Poland and Norway, and they have developed partnerships with charities and initiatives with Less Plastic UK, Just One Ocean, Plastic Oceans Canada and A Plastic Planet.
There Is A Collective Interest In Reducing Personal Plastic Waste
Most significantly, on the 1st of December, MyPlasticDairy announced that they won an Innovate UK grant to realize their “Fitbit for Plastic” vision. The team was awarded £50K from the Plastic Research and Innovation Fund. As a result, the company will spend over £70K during the next six months working on a more ambitious vision – designing service to make plastic footprint an integral part of online grocery shopping in the UK.
The founders of the company say that there is a lot of interest in this idea in the industry. Combined pressures of public opinion, government regulation, and customer interest mean supermarkets are investing more effort in reducing plastic and engaging with the community on this topic.
Sian Sutherland, the serial entrepreneur and A Plastic Planet co-founder, offered a quote of support:
“Technology will undoubtedly play a major part in the fight to reduce plastic, so we applaud this innovative and ambitious young team. If we can reward people for positive behaviour shifts and encourage supermarkets to offer more plastic-free choices, we are stepping on to a better and more sustainable road to a future that protects nature.”
Alex Zilber, the founder of MyPlasticDiary, says:
“Thanks to winning the Innovate UK grant, we can make our project even more ambitious and far-reaching. For us, 2020 was the year of connecting with people who care about sustainability and understand their needs, but 2021 will be about integrating packaging and plastic footprint information into online shopping and reaching out to a much wider audience through this. We aim to make an average shopper who buys products online a lot more aware of the environmental impact of packaging and helping them to make more sustainable choices. We are in early talks with potential retailer partners in the UK and Europe, and we welcome interest from other partners in this space.”
MyPlasticDiary can be downloaded from App Store and Google Play and is available in every country.
