He wants to make recycling a more positive experience

Not many people can say that they have dedicated an entire professional life to recycling systems and sewage logistics. But Olov Mattsson, the innovator behind the Green Lizzie waste sorting system, can.  With an ambition to simplify and improve recycling, Olov has developed a product that he hopes will inspire more people to sort correctly.

Olovs career took off right away. Shortly after his university education, he got a job at the packaging company PLM, where he mainly devoted himself to the profitability of the business and the improvement of the company's waste collection contracts. Although Olov’s roles and job descriptions have looked different over the years, the common denominator has always been different forms of waste logistics.

 

- Regardless of whether I worked with contractors or with municipalities, it was always fun to find solutions to create profitability with the waste systems. Obviously I understand the waste thing, says Olov.

Market research

After many years in the industry, Olov finally decided to investigate the possibility of manufacturing his own waste sorting systems. Before the manufacturing process began, solid market research was carried out at both recycling stations and in kitchen stores. It captured opinions, attitudes and perceptions of what the general public thought about everyday waste sorting.

The surveys showed that 97% of respondents had a positive attitude towards waste separation but expressed some dissatisfaction with the arrangements for the process. The majority thought that it could be both messy and noisy to sort at the source, and expressed a need to be able to carry more containers at the same time.

Product idea and the search for the right material

Olov landed on an idea that combines both function, design and finesse. With the Green Lizzie waste sorting system, it is easy to both store your household waste, transport it to the recycling centre and empty the containers into the respective containers.

 

Thanks to the smart inner container, you can press out the bottom of the container to empty it, a function that both makes emptying more efficient and makes the process more hygienic. There is also a convenient feature that allows the containers to hook into each other, allowing you to carry several containers at the same time.

Despite a carefully conceived idea, Olovs innovation was paused for a few years due to the lack of environmentally friendly materials.

- At that time, soft plastic materials that were not rubbery were not very well explored, says Olov.

Finally, he came across a fibre-based plastic that was based on biological production residues from Swedish forests. The material was both degradable and easy to handle during production, and became an obvious choice for Green Lizzie.

In addition to the carefully thought-out choice of materials, a lot of time has also been spent on the product's design. The ambition was to create a sustainable product that would go against the image of how recycling containers usually look, and instead create colourful containers that create a positive feeling about recycling.

- If it is possible to make recycling a more positive experience, people will sort both more and better. If we succeed in that, then we have contributed something.

Olov’s advice to other innovators:

  Don't sit alone with your idea for too long, find other people to bounce ideas off of. It's easy to get stuck in your own mind, but the lone innovator often has a harder time than those in a network.
  Don't forget to do customer surveys, where you can capture valuable feedback.

  Make room to make mistakes. Try to avoid the pressure to get everything right the first time. Remember that a good product is rarely the first prototype.