Honorable Mention

Solution

We collect and deliver clean and sanitized reusable utensils to street food vendors through a platform where we link these businesses with students, elder people, unemployed and single parents. In an integral way we transform the experience of street food, replacing single-use items with reusable utensils designed with food grade standards, ensure the health and hygiene of diners, offer jobs for people in situations of vulnerability and improve the image and reputation of street food stalls.

Project Description

It begins empathizing with street food stalls and identifying harmful practices, creating a strategy that manages the use of required utensils explaining in detail the role of the stalls within the service and the costs/benefits relationship and finally inviting them to be part of it. People in vulnerable situation will be recruited, receive orientation of how sanitize cookware and notifications of the businesses that request their service and are close to their homes, gathering dirty utensils and delivering clean ones, using a hermetic container that will facilitate the transportation and keeping them sanitized, so when they return to their homes they must wash the ones they had collected and after that stay alert for future requests and being remunerated economically by the washed utensils. Customers will consciously separate their waste supported by identifiable trash cans. On their check will be added a fee based on the number of dirty utensils they used during their visit.

Overview of the Solution

We generate a value chain for people and businesses, demonstrating that under this scheme a daily action such as dish washing could generate economic and environmental benefits for an entire ecosystem that is related day by day and faces complex social realities. Instead of handing out blame we believe that we can all be part of the solution. We are convinced of the impact our daily actions have (such as eating on the street), and that we encourage the necessary practices. This could change the popular view of street food places and break the paradigm of unsanitary, improve people’s health, generate less waste and economically activate people who need it.

The development and evaluation of the surgical project of collaboration with a community of delivers and volunteers from Mexico City that are part of several companies present in other states of the national territory. Likewise, the findings obtained from the field work done at the beginning of this project were very useful to create an user profile, based on Design Thinking and Human Centered Design methodologies so we could understand better what most of stakeholders live, need and expect.