The founder of bIOTAsphere, Terry Shane, presented a use case called “KUPkrush” for IOTA, which has received high recognition within the IOTA community and also from the IOTA Foundation. Shane, an IOTA enthusiast from the USA, wants to use IOTA Tangle technology to recycle disposable paper cups from, for example, Starbucks, McDonald’s or other cafés, thus turning “25 cents into a 150 billion dollar project”

In an online presentation, Shane explained that the recycling of disposable paper cups is a huge global environmental problem that cannot be solved by today’s technologies. As Shane notes, over 600 billion paper cups are produced annually. Of these, although the cups could be recycled, more than 99 percent currently end up in landfill, with less than 1 percent recycled and reused.

Shane also noted that governments around the world are considering introducing a 25 cent fee for the use of disposable paper cups. This fee, Shane said, will not change the fact that the cups are still not recycled. In addition, the problem is extremely complex, and the consumer can take the main responsibility for solving the problem. From a technical point of view, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), especially one with free transactions such as IOTA, is ideal for developing a solution to the problem.

For this purpose, bIOTAsphere will give each paper cup a unique identity through a digital twin via a QR code that will be applied to the cup during production. Thus, the cup can be traced over its entire life cycle via the IOTA Tangle. In addition, a deposit is charged for each cup, which is already included in the price in most countries, and which is assigned to the digital twin by means of an IOTA address.

This financial incentive is split between the consumer (10 cents), the producer (1 cent) and the retailer (2 cents). However, the deposit will only be released to all parties involved if the consumer disposes of the cups at a special machine. For this purpose, bIOTAsphere is developing the KUPkrush vending machine, which will be widely adapted and placed in places where consumers are most likely to dispose of their paper cups.

After the QR code has been scanned by the machine, the deposit is refunded to all parties involved. The vending machine is operated via smartphone. In addition, the owner of the vending machine will be able to earn money because the data collected by the machine is paid (5 cents). After disposal, the other players in the ecosystem can also earn money: Garbage collection (3 cents), garbage dump (1 cent) and the pulp and paper mill (1 cent). This gives all players an incentive to promote recycling.

As Shane also points out, market acceptance is a key criterion for the success of the project. This is where FISC, a non-profit foundation representing all the players in the ecosystem, should play the key role. If a cup is not returned within 30 days, the 25 cents will not be lost, but will be distributed to the community struggling with the waste problem, to FISC and bIOTAsphere via a smart contract.

Hans Moog, developer at the IOTA Foundation, praises the application in the highest tones. He also pointed out that the use case ideally links data and value transactions with the IOTA token, thus proving the opposite to all critics who think that the IOTA token has no use case:

It is an incredible use case not just for adoption but also for making the world a better place and it shows how important the data transactions aspect really is. Critics usually ask: “Why would people use the tokens if they can just use 0-value transactions?” or “Why would we use IOTA for data transactions if we had bittorrent for decades?”

This use case is such a wonderful combination of both aspects of the protocol that would not work without the other and it really puts these questions to rest as it gives a very concrete example of why and how these features of the protocol can and will be combined in the real world!

A user on Twitter asked Terry how long it would take IOTA to achieve the performance for this application. According to the user, 76,000 transactions per second are required, even if only 20 percent recycle their cup.

@io_terry gave great presentation, beautiful use case! It puts great responsibility you/IF to deliver on the ITOA promise. This use case alone requires an average of 76,000 TPS. How many months/years you expect to reach this performance level ? pic.twitter.com/AXzs6o2oxk

We won’t get to this level of adoption for many years, but don’t be fooled by the 20% redemption rate that we use to show what’s possible if we’re extremely conservative. In reality, with these incentives, I would expect 80%-95% of cups to be recycled.

Moog also said that the rate will be much higher. According to Moog, the scalability for this can only be achieved via sharding:

I would assume that it would even require more TPS as an estimate of 20% is most probably too low (not immediately but if it would be used globally). Considering, that this is just a single use case, it becomes very clear that this can only be done with sharding. And it also becomes very clear that it would make a lot of sense for this sharding to be location-based using a geographical mapping of the real world where all the actors that are interacting “see” each others transactions. This is exactly what we are working on with IOTA.

Jake Simmons has been a crypto enthusiast since 2016, and since hearing about Bitcoin and blockchain technology, he's been involved with the subject every day. Beyond cryptocurrencies, Jake studied computer science and worked for 2 years for a startup in the blockchain sector. At CNF he is responsible for technical issues. His goal is to make the world aware of cryptocurrencies in a simple and understandable way.

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