Swish Cups

Team: Siena Kinsale

SwishCups offers a circular and zero-waste end-to-end solution to eliminating single-use cups at marathons and other running events. This solution can effectively prevent hundreds of millions of cups from being used every year, in a fun and innovative way. To do this, SwishCups works with fossil-free PHA cups that are biodegradable, recyclable, and reusable. PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates) is a biopolymer that is made by feeding plant feedstocks such as starches, sugars, and vegetable oils to a bacterium. These PHA cups are made out of green energy and when washed and dried properly, these cups can be used hundreds of times. If the cups break they can be recycled, and once exposed to a bacteria found in nature the cups can biodegrade fully within a few months, leaving behind minerals for nature. This makes the cups fully circular. The more times the cups are used before reaching their end of life, the more sustainable it is. That is why, SwishCups provides an end-to-end service that events can outsource to implement waste-free beverage refill stations. When working with SwishCups, SwishCups brings the PHA cups to the event and sets up specially designed nets along the running track for runners to throw the cups into. Beverage refill stations at running events normally work with volunteers. Therefore, before the event, SwishCups will educate all of the volunteers on how to work with refill stations at events that work with SwishCups. After the event, SwishCups picks up the cups and nets, washes all of the cups, and stores the cups so the cups are ready to be used again at another event. Any cups that are lost (eg. if a cup blows into a river or into the forest and isn’t found) will biodegrade after coming into contact with bacteria found in nature and leave behind organic nutrients and minerals in nature. Moreover, SwishCups also collects all broken cups and ensures that all of those cups are recycled accordingly.

Faculty: Business & Economics