This project was selected for the final round of the Service Design Challenge 2021. The challenge was to improve the end-of-life cycle of products and services by actively engaging users. Our team focused on the old phones people have lying around in their homes, of which almost none are put back into the circular economy.
By conducting explorative research and interviews, we found that people have little knowledge nor awareness about giving used phones a new life. If they know, it still takes a lot of effort to find the right place to safely hand it in making it unaccessible for most people. Our goal was to create an accessible and pro-active handling in process of used phones where both users and direct stakeholders feel responsible, by making the whole process and its consequences transparent.
We came up with REPOKKI, a circular service that facilitates and guides people to hand in used phones in an accessible and transparant way. This is done with the use of a modular hub located in supermarkets and electronic stores. Since we obviously desired a durable solution, REPOKKI also redesigned the system in which different stakeholders, such as the municipality of Rotterdam & recycling- and refurbishing companies are working together to put these handed-in phones back into the circular economy.
This project is was part of the Service Design Challenge 2021, initiated by Philips Experience Design, IBM and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation
