When and how did the idea of vasovengo?

VasovenGo was born at the beginning of 2022 at a mother and daughter meal, talking about so many bad habits that have led us to this climate crisis and about the capabilities that we as designers and entrepreneurs have to transform them. It is born from the union between two generations; one who has lived a childhood where reuse was normal, and another who lives an ideal of recovering it. It is born from a joint motivation to do what is within our power to leave a better planet for the generations that follow us.

Who is your target audience and what is the value proposition you offer them?

The main objective of vasovenGo is to help citizens recover the habit of reusing. Generating trends through design and offering an easy and analog system is our strategy to compete against the conveniences of single-use packaging. We want to start by addressing the context that consumes the most single-use cups: the coffee industry and specialty coffee shops, but the scope will be all those establishments that sooner or later have to make the transition to reuse and do not know how or where. begin.

Can you explain to us why a vasovengoit is more sustainable than a single-use cup?

To understand why there are more or less sustainable products we have to question their meaning in life and the reason why they were designed. What is the point of creating a glass to drink coffee that can only be used once, if it is an activity that we repeat daily? If we think about what the life cycle of a glass entails (the extraction of materials, manufacturing energy, gasoline for transportation, recovery as waste and energy for recycling -in the best of cases-) and we use it to consume only 250ml of drink in 10 minutes, perhaps there is something that does not fit well. Comparing that we need a glass to drink one coffee or a glass to drink 200 coffees, the reduction in impact per glass is clear. Therefore, every time we reuse a glass we reduce its environmental impact, which is what we seek to promote with the vasovenGo reuse system.

Extending the useful life of the product is key to the circular economy. How many uses can a product have? vasovengo? And how do you close the cycle to minimize waste generation?

(The first part is a response to above)

VasovenGo is a packaging return and return system; The fact of not selling, but renting glasses, allows us to have control over the end of life of the containers so that, once they are reaching their end of life, we can recover them and send them back to our suppliers so that they can recycle and produce them. new products.

What are the advantages of using rice husk in manufacturing? And why do you use plastic polymers?

To offer a 100% circular service, we decided to choose the suppliers with the most sustainable criteria that we found: on the one hand, prioritizing local production to avoid unnecessary transportation and emissions, and on the other, choosing eco-innovative materials. By using 60% rice husk we are applying one of the principles of the circular economy: using waste as resources. Rice is one of the most consumed foods in the world, and its husk is not suitable for any food purpose, both for humans and animals. Using this agricultural waste allows us to optimize the use of plastic, replacing the 60% of polymer that we would normally use to produce the same glasses.

Do you have data on the (positive) impact on the environment that renting VS glasses has. single-use cups (in terms of reducing CO2 emissions, recycled plastic, etc.)?

According to environmental studies, reusing a glass 50 times reduces the carbon footprint 10 times vs. a single-use cup.

In which establishments can we currently find vasovengo?
Café y queso
Juice Dudes Provenza
Jucie Dudes Meridiana
Juice Dude’s Universitat
Juice Dudes Gran Via
Pantastic Ibiza
BCOFEE
Sotaque Café
NEO Café
El Bullidor
Juice Dudes Poblenou
Roma & Sants
Austral Coffee Bar
Coffee Casa

The design of the glasses is really very attractive. Does the user have the possibility of keeping the glass?

Of course! If you want to reuse your vasovenGo every day, we will only be getting closer to our goal of avoiding plastic waste. If you are one of those who forgets it at home and accumulates glasses, then you can return them all and get your deposit back. We don’t want anything to stop you from reusing, that’s why we try to make it easy for you and above all, free!

Do you have any traceability to know how many glasses you have “rented” and how many are returned?

At the moment the way to do traceability is with the number of glasses that have left our establishments, those that have not returned mean that they are in circulation, that is, they are constantly being refilled. In any case, we are working to increase the traceability of uses without involving the user, to avoid usability barriers and ensure the simplicity of our system.

Who are your key partners?

Users are our accomplices, they are the ones who have the power to put pressure on establishments to adopt our system. However, we have a very important support network that has allowed us to be who we are today; our suppliers Ecogots for shaping the packaging, the advertising and design agency Wò studio for giving voice, image and life to the brand, the environmental consultancy inèdit for advising us on our circular business model, and other institutions that have supported us to give this push towards reuse such as Rezero, Barcelona Coffee Guide or the Barcelona city council.

How to make renting profitable vasovengo?

With the new waste law, users will be obliged to pay an amount for each single-use glass they consume, apart from the price of the coffee. No matter how low the price per container, each coffee the user consumes will accumulate an extra expense. The cost of using glassesenGo is free, since it is only necessary to give one euro as a deposit that the user will recover once the glass is returned. It is profitable from the first use.

What is the development strategy you are currently focused on?

We are trying to gain trust and make ourselves known mainly through events, which is another of the most critical waste generation contexts. We believe that before going “door to door” to cafes and establishments, we must use our best ally – the users – so that they are the ones who ask for the change from their trusted cafes. We are aware that to change a habit we have to generate a trend, and to achieve this we will strive to create powerful communication that drives change by motivating, never by recriminating.