In the early 1960s, Alfred Heineken visited some islands and was shocked to find all the waste on the beaches, especially since a significant amount was his beer bottles. He also noticed that many poor areas lacked building material to build homes. This inspired him to develop the “WOBO,” a rectangular beer bottle that could double as a glass brick to build homes in impoverished countries.
Similar to that design, a French industrial designer Petit Romain, made the ‘Heineken Cube’ concept in 2008. However, the cube is meant to save space for transport, manufacture, and consumers, rather than building homes. Romain was tired of round bottles in six-packs that clink together and are not easy to stack, so he decided to make his own take on Alfred’s WOBO design.
In 2012, Heineken launched an online open innovation platform, as it wanted new ideas for more sustainable products—a commitment that now includes converting beer waste into renewable energy at its breweries. The first challenge established by Heineken’s Ideas Brewery was for innovators to submit their concepts for sustainable beer packaging, with the best entry to be awarded $10,000.
The winner was Germany’s Helmut Witteler with ‘The Heineken 1000$ bottle,’ which turns beer pong into a recycling game. Helmut proposed an innovative device called the ‘Heineken-O-Mat,‘ which is designed to motivate consumers to return/recycle bottles.
