Automated Water Vending Machine: Business idea to save environment !!

The germ of this idea was sown while I was rodinhooding 🙂 i.e. reading discussions posted by others on The Rodinhoods. You can find the relevant post here

Today we consume lot of drinking water, when we travel in the form of packaged water in PET bottles. By doing so not only we pay too much to buy these bottles but also increase the chemical waste of empty water bottles. When we buy a bottled water the only intention we have is to get fresh, purified water for consumption and we really don’t bother how we get it. What I mean to say by this is we are not concerned about how do we get the fresh and purified water once we are assured about the quality and purity of the water. This prompted me to think about the business model which is not something very complex or complicated (In fact many big and important things our life are simple and easy)

Considering the fact that what we actually need is authentic source of pure and fresh water.

• The idea is to set up Automated Water Vending Machines at all the public places such as Bus Stands, Railway Stations, Multiplexes, Malls, Airports, Motels in short at all such places where we normally buy water whenever we travel.
• The Automated Water Vending Machine will be designed in such a way that it will accept only specific type of bottle in it having various packing sizes such as 2000 ml, 1000 ml and 500 ml
• The neck and caps of these bottles will be of unified size. These durable and reusable water containers or bottles would be sold separately and these containers would be made of Poly Carbonate (PC) material which is highly durable, food grade and aesthetically attractive.
• Consumers will buy this type of water container only once and will carry the same wherever they go and purified and chilled water would be made available to them through a network of Water Vending Machines at all the public places.
• People just need to purchase specially made coin coupons in advance to refill their water container with required quantity.

Following are the benefits of this type of Water Vending System:

• Consumers don’t have to buy a new Packaged Drinking Bottle every time they travel. They will just buy one permanent durable water pitcher or container and can get refills wherever they go.
• This will reduce the money spent on buying water by each consumer as the cost of a refill will be at approximately 30 % to 40 % lower than buying new bottle.
• Quality of the water would be maintained as one company would be servicing the entire stock of water to be distributed to all the Automated Vending Machines.
• A huge relief to environment as the consumption of PET bottles will reduce because of this reusable water pitcher.
• Government Agencies can offer subsidies, loans and concessions in taxes and strategic locations to install Water Refill Machines ( Such as Bus Stands, Railway Stations, Airports, Malls and Multiplexes)  to this business as it is saving environment from the plastic pollution.
• Business can earn money from selling Water Pitchers, Automated Water Vending Machines and Refills to the Vending Machines.
• Franchisee to operate these machines can be given to Shops, STD Booths, Pan Shops, Small Restaurants, who will invest in the machines and get commission on every refill bought by the end customer.

As I suggested earlier this is just a raw business idea however can be perfected if supported by capital and entrepreneurial spirit. There are definitely many challenges in implementing this in reality but looking at the kind of pollution we are spreading around by using Plastic bottles, this is definitely a worth idea to try !!!

I am waiting for your comments on how this idea can be perfected.

Originally published at my personal blog www.mandarjoshi.com/blog