3.2.6 Bonbonella - The 'reuse' shop

3.2.6 Bonbonella - The 'reuse' shop

Bonbonella-Cute Bar is a small café operating in an environmental friendly way identifying solutions to reduce energy consumption and utilizing by-products.      

Bonbonella invests in Circular Economy from the construction process by covering the walls with reused wallpapers, while the decoration of the café was based mainly on refurbished furniture (tables, sofas), textiles (old curtains for covering pillows) and construction materials (doors).

The main difficulty was the large amount of waste from coffee and fruits. To overcome this problem, the company gives away the coffee residues to any interested parties (citizens, organisations) for using it as fertilizer. Furthermore, the metallic coffee packages are disseminated to people to be used in a different way. To promote this initiative, a contest has been started on social media, through which examples (decoration, games and storage) of these packages’ reuse are uploaded. The posts with the greater impression win and their users are rewarded with free coffee for 1-week period.     

These initiatives are targeted also to energy efficiency through the use of low-energy consumption lighting (LED bulbs) and waste recycling of the products packaging. In addition, the company cooperates with the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki providing plastic caps (from bottles of water and juices) in order to be used for constructing wheelchairs. Waste prevention is another initiative achieved by composting food waste.

 

Resources needed

The investments included the procurement of reused material in a low price, while here no employees were involved except for the owners. For disseminating coffee waste rubber bags are used. In terms of the lighting (LED bulbs purchase), a bigger investment was made in comparison to the conventional ones.

 

Evidence of success

The company has attracted numerous environmental friendly customers eager to participate in such initiatives. 

 

Difficulties encountered

The majority of the citizens are not yet aware of the benefits of circular economy. Thus, the main difficulty faced is the need for more available space to storage the packaging waste and to find suitable and available space to place the composting bin.

 

Potential for learning or transfer

The initiatives of Bonbonella appear as a good practice of circular economy for other similar enterprises.