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Business Plan

Siemen Brinksma siemenb

Business Plan

05/02/2018 at 19:28

Hello Precious Plastic community! I’m new here. I apologize up front for the big piece of text 🙂

Who am I?
I’m a young Dutch guy from the Eindhoven region with a love for recycling systems. I recently graduated from Business University and saw my freedom as a chance to travel around Southeast Asia. This journey made me realize how many people do not have access to a system to properly discard and recycle waste, and what the impact of this is worldwide.

According to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, about 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic have been produced since the 1950s. 6.3 billion metric tons of this has become plastic waste and of that, only 9% has ever been recycled. The sheer numbers are simply terrifying. Especially when you think that all this plastic waste ends up in the air (through burning), in/on the ground, or in the water. Coupled with population growth and increased production levels, the world needs to realize that we simply cannot continue on this path. We need to either replace plastic with more biodegradable materials, or close the waste circle.

While I was traveling I came up with all these ideas for closing the waste stream. I also started looking online. It made me very happy to find Dave’s Precious Plastic project. Somebody is already working to solve this problem in an awesome, open-sourced way. Moreover, this guy is from close to my own home town! I thought to myself: “Great! So what can I do to help him?”

I don’t really have the technical knowledge needed for machine building or the chemistry knowledge to find new applications for discarded plastic. But I think precious plastic already has many people with these skillsets..

So what does precious plastic need?
Users! In order for Precious Plastic to make a significant impact, we need many people worldwide to use this awesome system! And this is a field where I do have skills. In business school I basically learned how to make a significant global impact in our contemporary capitalist system.What Precious Plastic needs is a good Business Plan.

“But wait, there already is a Business Plan!?”
That’s true, there is funding from donations, patreon and multiple international foundations. Furthermore, people with a recycling workshop now have the online Bazar to sell their products. So that’s great! But that’s not what I mean. We need to give people the knowledge and tools to make their workspace profitable. Just like the precious plastic website gives people the technical knowledge to build the workspace, machines and products, it should also give people the business knowledge to make their workspace successful.

“Profit!? Sounds so capitalistic…”
I know that Precious Plastic is not like a traditional company where it’s all about earning profit. However, in order for the project to grow, each workspace needs it’s economic viability. An organization that mainly depends on donations and volunteers just doesn’t grow fast enough. When a workspace is able to make substantial profit this money can be used to increase awareness, scale up production or give something back to the community that puts hard work into making this project work. Simply put: profit serves to be reinvested in the project to have a growing impact. This is called Sustainable Business.

What would I like to do?
Together with a dedicated team, I would like to set up an all-round, openly available business plan that the Precious Plastic community can use to start increasing their local impact. I believe that business and operations are crucial points of knowledge that all workspaces need. The problem is of course, that every workspace is in a different situation. Different situations mean different business plans. The challenge is to create one that is like a template. A business plan containing general information that can be used by everyone to suit their local needs. This can then be incorporated into precious plastic version 4.

What this plan will look like
The rollout of this plan will have to happen on two levels. Globally and locally. On a global scale Precious Plastic needs to evolve by providing the new information through a book or web app. Furthermore, Precious Plastic needs partnerships to grow. An example of a mutually beneficial business partnership would be Ikea. Ikea could sell locally made precious plastic items in their stores worldwide. For precious plastic this would increase awareness and sales and for Ikea it would be a good CSR opportunity.

On a local scale there will be three template business plans. One for workspaces, machine builders and people that want to get started. For each of these a different business template is needed, but at the same time they are also all connected. Machine builders serve as a hub, from where all the workspaces can be supplied with machines and moulds but potentially also many other things needed to set up and operate a workspace.

The spokes of this system are the workspaces. The workspaces need to set up an infrastructure for collecting plastic, spread awareness, find retailers, get workers and volunteers etc. etc.. Of course every local shop already has its own ways and ideas, so the business plan mainly serves as a guideline, asking people whether they’ve taken everything in account and providing them with the tools to do finance, accounting, marketing, supply chain etc. An example of a great thing that precious plastic global can offer to workspaces are poster designs that workspaces can print hang around the community to raise awareness.

Finally, people that want to get started get a guide to setting up their workspace, not only in a technical sense, but also from a business perspective. Furthermore, they should be brought into contact with their local machine builder where they can buy the materials they need. Since Precious Plastic is a tight, high trust community it would be possible for machine builders to do local sales on a loan. The machine builder will provide moulds and machines to the workspace while keeping ownership. The workspace then can start turning profit and pays the moulds and machines back within an agreed upon time. If the workspace pays the machine builder back completely (this can be done at once or in installments) the workspace gets the ownership over the machines. If the workspace does not manage to raise enough funds within the set time the machine builder can come to an agreement with the workspace to extend the payback time or to take back the machines. The advantage for the machine builder is that he will be able to set up more workspaces, and sell more machines, since people do not need high initial funds to set up a workspace. On the other hand it will be easier to set up a workspace and the community as a whole will grow quicker. Of course this can only happen when there is high trust between the machine builder and workspace and if the machine builder is financially able to sell machines on a loan.

These are just a couple of ideas but an overall structure is needed covering everything from finance to marketing to human resources and value chain management. The overall goal would be to get this global community to work in unison and for the movement to grow into making a significant worldwide impact.

How would I like to do this
These are just a few ideas for things that could be incorporated in a business plan. However, it is far from being a complete business strategy. For this, I would first like to meet with Dave in his workspace to talk about the business side of precious plastic and his vision for the future (if you are reading this Dave, hit me up!). After that I will need a team of people that each focus on a specific aspect of this plan to write a beta version. Then, each of the team members, including me, would have to go volunteer at a few workspaces all over the world to find challenges, flaws and new ideas. After that the plan can be updated into its final form and published online for the whole world to use.

I am really excited to help precious plastic grow their global impact and I’m totally willing to put my own time and effort into this project because I can learn so much and have such a positive impact. Also, I’m sure I can find like-minded people in the community that could help me make this idea a reality. I would really like to hear what you guys think and I’m always open for ideas and suggestions.

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In reply to: Business Plan

warrior
19/06/2018 at 18:51

wow, your words are really harsch. i won’t get into your game. if you want to talk about business plan; please let’s do. but can you please stop spitting on all the work & research that has been done until now?

In reply to: Business Plan

19/06/2018 at 19:06

i am not spitting on research, right now i have to complete it on my end, at high prices because you folks didn’t report the results right (with clear intentions: self enrichment). i am really serious about the scam thing! so please fix the page ASAP or face consequences! you had enough evidence and reports that the prices and possibilities are complete not true!

In reply to: Business Plan

warrior
19/06/2018 at 19:30

dude you are attacking me while i am not even linked to core PP; i am just a simple man doing my own tests on plastic recycling; building slowly but surely my different machines. you are just full of s***
I’ll just ignore you from now on because you aren’t bringing anything constructive. have a nice one.

In reply to: Business Plan

19/06/2018 at 19:35

@imuh, i am not attacking you, just this selfish & irresponsible wanna be eco PP team 🙂

In reply to: Business Plan

dedicated
19/06/2018 at 21:03

@timhardex just get the f**k out of here!!!

In reply to: Business Plan

19/06/2018 at 21:47

i know guys, you don’t like the truth just, you made it clear everywhere, otherwise you would have already emerged the community feedback into the kits.

considering the damage you did, to us users, who believed you in the first place, count on me there will be consequences, on all levels! I gonna make sure that the awards will be reviewed, and users will be warned about this hypocrite scam.

thanks also for screwing the env. with your 3kw setups to make useless baskets and lamps!

so dear kids, be warned! you had your chance but you prefer to keep lying, with the most goovy excuses,

In reply to: Business Plan

19/06/2018 at 21:49

and no, i will be around, for a long time!

In reply to: Business Plan

dedicated
19/06/2018 at 21:54

Well, i stop to feed the troll.

In reply to: Business Plan

19/06/2018 at 21:59

yeah, its all said, update the site with truth and facts, and we are good!
g

In reply to: Business Plan

warrior
19/06/2018 at 23:53

Sigh..Again @timhardex. Provide us those realistic worldwide average numbers and we are happy to change them. And get a stress ball or something to get rid of your frustrations

In reply to: Business Plan

dedicated
20/06/2018 at 02:17

Just trying to read a bit through timhardex’s lines, I feel like he does have a bit of a valid point (even though it’s expressed in a very aggressive and non constructive way). I’ll give it a shot and see if I can try to help out or at least give my interpretation in relation to this topic.
For instance the pricing. There isn’t such a thing as 1 global price, and I think everybody here also agrees on that. But then maybe there shouldn’t be a single price tag for each machine on the precious plastic website, as it currently is, either? However I do see the need for showing some kind of estimation, since that’s one of the things somebody wants to know before getting started.
Showing people a rather low price which you maybe can match IF you have access to the right places, tools, people, time and skills, make the threshold for getting involved lower. But it can end up in pretty bad situations if people spend money on trying to build the machines and half way realize the prices or machines don’t meet the expectations they got, perhaps based on information from the website.
I know the precious plastic team is aware of this problem as Mattia also touches on this subject in this news post, and Katharina has been thinking of a potential solution in her research topic.
But this is also why I think this business plan is such an important step. It needs to be clear that trying to make a living from recycling plastic is not easy. Running a business is not easy and people need to be aware of the risks. And if they don’t want to, or are not able to take that risk be provided with suggestions on how to get funding if they want to.
In Mattia’s news post he describes the precious plastic team “struggled for 4 years, living in workspaces and vans”. Perhaps it could be useful to explain more about this. Are you currently in a better financial situation? How did you do that? Do you make plans for the future to be able to sustain yourselves?

I get it guys. I also don’t like the whole money aspect in life and I agree that money shouldn’t be the main goal for making people do what they do or do what they think is right. But it kind of all ends if you’re not able to sustain yourself in a capitalistic society.

Anyway, I sincerely believe the Precious Plastic team has only good intentions. They’re not perfect and I don’t think they ever claimed that either so I think we should try to help point out improvements whenever possible. @timhardex You seem to have a lot of relevant knowledge and skills which can be very useful to the community. But let’s just try and keep it constructive here.

In reply to: Business Plan

20/06/2018 at 09:59

i offered my help often enough, at the end of the day, the PP team prefered to leave the false statements on the website. It would take not even a day to update the site for the correct facts (no filaments, weak motor, stupid useless wooddrill,… ).

And stop playing stupid !! I know you’re creative with that! There is enough evidence/reports to get the average prices for the more developed continents. The prices I found in my tables are valid for entire Europe (+/- 30%), USA, Australia. It takes you a day to fix all, now get to work!

ps: i warned you, if you keep going with this scam, fooling us, screwing us, ….there will be consequences, starting next week.

In reply to: Business Plan

20/06/2018 at 12:37

if you look at the reported amount worn out or way to weak shredders, disappointments about filament, wasted money on wood drills and everything what comes with it, I need don’t tell you, we’re talking here about 5 digit numbers, heavy coast, heavy footprint. Given the fact you didn’t update the sheets and you didn’t place any warning in the materials or took any community feedback into the kits : I can tell you what this is: selfish and at this scale, plain criminal! It would have taken a couple of hours just to protect us, the community.

shame, shame shame, you get the results back, promised

In reply to: Business Plan

warrior
20/06/2018 at 19:26

To everyone following this thread…. Here is the thing with open source development. Many people have opinions and ways how to do things different or what they think its better from their perspective. For instance on this topic, some want to include a global average, some price per region, some their own outcome and some no number at all.

The main reason we have a number in the first place is because people kept asking us (2 years ago) how much it took me to build the machines material wise so we put my number up there. Honestly we never found a good way to give people a real local estimate because there are just so many variables.  throughout the years we noticed some make it for more, some for less.. really depends on the situation.

Now. We’re totally up for changing it into something else (whatever you guys think fits) Honestly i don’t care, in the end this number is here for the people (you) that want to get started. It wasn’t my plan at all to look into this tiny detail thing since we are going to rethink from scratch again in V4.0 ,but sure if everyone thinks its stupid we look into it.

HOWEVER! We are not going to do this based on one guys bad experience who just spams his opinion all over a community he just recently joined. If we would base decisions on these impulsive loud talking characters the project would be a chaos. So @siemenc I very much appreciate you taking the time to think about this. I know you have been following long and understand where we are. Let me know if you have a good solution or road ahead we should follow.

For anyone else but specially you @timhardex. Dont scream to get what you want but work on it, inspire us and show us the way. “offering help” doesn’t mean anything if you don’t put it into action. We are constantly figuring out how we can move forward and make (what we think) big steps with the minimal resources available.  I’m aware this things means the world to you but we are just a small team. We cant help out everyone with everything all the time. So be prepared to organise the work and do the heavy lifting. Or sit back, simply share your feedback on hope we will change it in V4.

Sorry we can’t please everyone with all their wished and demands. Until now everyone is always been very helpful and constructive. Working together to make it better. Hope we can keep it that way…

In reply to: Business Plan

20/06/2018 at 19:37

we still can’t see any disclaimer in v3, or the bazar items that the machines are not working as advertised nor won’t last long, nor that the fees exposed in v3 are some dream numbers from Jupiter, nor that the fees/prices might be up to 10 times!

and stop pretending it’s just me, look at the forum how many people left, worn shredders,……………………………………………………

i still stick to my accusations: you are irresponsible selfish liar! it cost you nothing to warn us but you prefer bogus/goovy crap which doesn’t change the reality for us, or new users!

In reply to: Business Plan

20/06/2018 at 19:40

so at this point, what’s your problem with telling the people the truth ? you seem to spent more time on justifying your goovy excuses than actual & constructive preventive measures!? why is that ?

In reply to: Business Plan

warrior
20/06/2018 at 19:47

I’ve been trying to talk with you multiple times @timhardex but it seems we talk a different language. This is the last time i’ll reply to your feedback, you’ve already gotten to much attention for the actual input you delivered. The things you address are very much from one/your point of view. Not that they are wrong, but they are not right to make drastic claims like “scams” “remove the wooddrill” “fooling us”. If it doesn’t work for you and you in fancy Europe doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for anyone else in the world.
1: Never had or heard any major negative feedback on the wooddrill. I’ve used it myself for +2 years and still use it with a basic setup. Get most of the jobs done.(not beams though)
2: Whats the point of weak shredders? I’d say that depends mainly on your own build quality and material choice. Sure it’s not industrial quality (working on that) but if construct properly you can run it for a long time.
3: Filament is in Beta, under development. says it in the title, can’t expect a solid output from that

Now i’m off. Hopefully you find a peaceful way to contribute.

In reply to: Business Plan

20/06/2018 at 19:55

ok, no changes, no preventive measures, just the usual irresponsible bla bla.
ok then,  i’m going file a complete report, also to the award sources,

you are a criminal and you have and will be treated as one.

In reply to: Business Plan

dedicated
20/06/2018 at 21:50

@timhardex,
Dont want to blend too much in this discussion, but after a quick check I found both on the PP website and the Bazar a small written text as a disclaimer:
https://preciousplastic.com/en/info/terms.html
https://bazar.preciousplastic.com/en/infos/terms

Maybe it helps

peace,

In reply to: Business Plan

20/06/2018 at 21:53

funny, anyone i know from the industry and even that so called ecologic world would have placed disclaimers with the first report already. looks like our Dave should work as politician or car insurance inspector, there they have little to no moral. no matter how cute and neat you wanna make this here yet unsustainable, unjustifiable project, you’re still dealing here with standards, warranties and by law enforced disclaimers !  anything else is just garbage and playing with the life of the others!

In reply to: Business Plan

dedicated
21/06/2018 at 12:52

@timhardex,
I do not get it. On one hand you are posting really counter productive, aggressive posts, on the other hand you are also building the machines (which look really good and professional build).
If you do not appreciate how PP works… just do not participate.

Same with ‘youtubers’ or ‘influencers’ some people love them and follow, learn and mimic how their idols behave. Some people do not like them and just ignore them.

Dave is not ‘the industry’. He is guy who wanted to change something in the world. His ideas are followed by many people. They do not need to do so. And since everything is open source, people are allowed to do what ever they want with his ideas.

 

In reply to: Business Plan

21/06/2018 at 14:47

all i am asking is some little decency, honesty and responsibility. with v3 we just get a big slap in the face when we build according to the plans. the material bill is a joke, then there is no warning about filament (not possible) but he pretends he does filament, the motor is tooo weak, the blades are getting worn out. there is no single warning about these things, and he refuses to warn us about! this is as said a criminal behaviour ! misleading us with false information and prices.

so you’re saying in the opensource world we have now this sort of ‘eat shit and die’ policy ?

there is enough evidence and reports all over the forum, it takes minutes to publish this on the site properly !

In reply to: Business Plan

21/06/2018 at 15:08

all it needs is fat & big warning on the main site:

– no proper filament with v3
– prices vary depending on the location, to build a sufficient strong shredder, min. price in europe is 900 Euro (excluding labour, 3 weeks min.)
– current shredder is not intended for professional use, it may wear out quickly otherwise
– please don’t use a wood drill for profession applications  use industrial extrusion screws instead, starting at 400 Euro

that’s it ! that’s all it takes to protect users, every new user is going to face that issues otherwise.

ITS YOUR FUCKING DUTY TO PROTECT US!
g

In reply to: Business Plan

21/06/2018 at 15:37

the worst slap in our faces is in fact that there isn’t even a recommendation about the required motor power. the main site/v3/videos kit seems to suggest that 2kw is enough to shred pretty much everything. in reality it’s complete joke. you need at least 4kw (5hp) and a real good reducer, this alone pushes you (after you spent insane amounts already on a lie) in the 900 Euro range.

there are 2 key topics, motorguide, and REALISTIC prices in the forum. why the heck is this not mentioned on the site/v3-kit/videos, why why why you act so cowardly ?

g

In reply to: Business Plan

hero
21/06/2018 at 18:00

I just deleted timhardex’s account (second account I delete from him), this guy is just out of his mind. If you see him around the forum with a new account, please let me know

In reply to: Business Plan

21/06/2018 at 21:35

Hi,
my name is Anne Barbier. I am working part-time for Greenpeace and other organisations. I’m related to Guenter, aka TimHardex. He made me aware about the issues and conflicts here. I know Guenter since long and he’s a valuable  resource to us, he works restlessly for various communities. He and me also invested a lot in the machine research in the last 8 months. We paid a lot of money and pain to get a sustainable setup for the communities, out of our own pockets. I know & trust Guenter well enough that if he complains, there are reasons. He told me that Precious Plastic team refuses to place clear warnings about the machines and agree with him that this is not a good solution for people entering the project. It represents a couple of thousand hard earned Euros, to him and his clients. His intention was to warn others with similar serious and professional background.

He’d like to know why his posts about the sustainability questions about the project itself have been deleted and why has his account been deleted. I know he can be very direct but I trust him enough that if he gets cross, there is usually a serious reason about.

Please elaborate ! There are big sacrifices he did, for PP and our communities here. According to him, it was not necessary as said.

Thank you,
best regards – Anne Barbier | Spain – Catalonia

In reply to: Business Plan

hero
21/06/2018 at 21:54

Hello @anne-barbier

Since Guenter joined the community with his first account, he started posting useful information and pictures of his very professional looking machines, and everybody appreciated it and praised him for his work. Suddenly, his posts got offensive and he started threatening the community and @davehakkens himself. We asked him to share his findings, and to help us improve the project by proposing upgrades, new ideas, and which security features could we implement in the next release of precious plastic, but he never toned down his offensive/attacking posts, calling our community “eco wannabes”, liars, cowards, scammers, and never agreed to cooperate like a civilized person.

Dave offered him to have a 1-1 videocall to talk, listen to his ideas and know which corrections he wanted for the forum, but he just keep on bashing against everyone.

I do know that the cost estimations for the machines are far from accurate, but estimating a cost for the machines is impossible on a global scale. For Dave, the machines were cheap because he had all tools and resources already available, for some other people, finding a junk yard with second hand motors is an impossible task and they have to get them brand new. On my case, I was able to score a 5HP motoreducer for $600 that normally sells for over $2000 in stores, so this gives you an idea of how hard it is to tell people “you can build a shredder for XXX amount of money”.

I’m sorry to hear that Guenter spent so much money on his machines, and I’m sorry to hear that the quality of the shredder didn’t meet his expectations, but no one here in the community is an expert on anything, we are just collaborating with our experience and trying to design a product that works without breaking the bank. At the end of the day, it is Guenters fault to invest so much money without properly quotating the costs of all the parts involved in his region. I’m not an accountant, but I do not that before I invest in something, I need to know how much will it cost me and if I will ever get a return of the investment.

You seem like a reasonable person, but personally, I will not allow your friend Guenter in the community anymore. He was given enough time and patience to help us improve our project, but the community is tired of his negativity and lack of cooperation to reach a common goal.

Olivier

In reply to: Business Plan

22/06/2018 at 09:43

Hi,
that still doesn’t make sense to me and him.

So at the end you keep refusing to place clear warnings to the others ? In this case he’s right with filing reports to us and other organisations.

In reply to: Business Plan

hero
22/06/2018 at 10:01

@anne-barbier
Please elaborate what doesn’t make sense. My response was quite extense so I feel I deserve to receive more than those 9 words lacking of any meaning.

“So at the end you keep refusing to place clear warnings to the others?”

Who says so? Which warnings do you need? We tried to get your friend to talk to us and help us improve the forum, and we are willing to make any safety improvements as long as they make sense and are properly grounded.

If what you are expecting is something like: “CAUTION: Please don’t wrap your mouth around the exhaust pipe of your car or you might die of suffocation” then that’s probably not going to happen.

“In this case he’s right with filing reports to us and other organisations.”

Be my guest. Precious Plastic is an open and non-proffit initiative, giving out everything for free, and without budget to pay any employees to update the forum, product designs or make documentation. No one here gets paid for what we give out for free, and no one in any country is obliged to use Precious Plastic designs for their projects or build any of the machines we propose. If you or anyone think this initiative is not what you are looking for, and if you are not willing to help us improve the project, then please step away and let us keep working on making the world a better place.

In reply to: Business Plan

22/06/2018 at 10:47

Gunter says, he made it clear what warnings and issues have to be considered when building or buying this machines numerous times. All his points have been rejected and ignored every time. Despite that these machines are lacking CE certification(rendering them also illegal), you are obliged – especially if you claim a positive purpose – to at least take the community feedback/reports into account and update your materials. To me too, it’s irresponsible to advertise functionality which is not given : filament or premature worn shredder blades or considerations about the motor power to be taken into account (plastic bottles won’t work with the suggested motor power of 2kw – 3kw).

Looking at the actual cost to the planet in building and using this machines, he is also right to make others aware about the real impacts and price to be paid by follow generations for your actions. His remarks have been deleted about this, he understands that you may have feel offended and he is sorry about. We understand that you are young people and don’t have necessarily experience in engineering and green and other policies to fully understand the entire scope of your activities but he is right when saying that the machines have to full-fill legal and environmental aspects in terms of real cost and efficiency (CE is covering this as well) as well consumer protection. Being an open-source project doesn’t fee you from this responsibilities toward other and joining people.

So please, finish what you started in a professional and honest manner. There are dozens of reports here in the forum. Enough material to warn new users about their investment.

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