Forming An Opportunity Belief

1) Your beginning point. Do you have a belief, supposition, or feeling than an opportunity exists? 

I believe there must be a better way (more efficient, cost-effective, or environmentally friendly) to dispose of used motorcycle helmets. (like mine, pictured above).

2) Describe your belief. 

The unmet need is the wasted space taken up by used helmets, either in a person's home or in a landfill. The need is only by motorcyclists, specifically a motorcyclist who has been in an accident or used their helmet frequently for over five years. The need comes from as long as motorcycle hemet manufacturers have been designing helmets that lose their integrity after impact or molding to a person's head, i.e. their safety feature is what makes them not reusable. People hang up old helmets in their home as decoration, turn them into flower pots, turn them into lamps, or permanently damage the helmet in a way that no one could accidentally reuse it. Some use it as a second rider helmet, but that is not ideal either. I am 50% sure that an opportunity exists, because I see the opportunity but I also know people aren't quick to change their ways and the motorcycle community is no different.

Does this need extend to bicycle helmets?

3) Identify the prototypical customer. Motorcyclists (because it is the only activity requiring a motorcycle helmet)

4) Iteration No. 1: Instead of one interview, asked a little bit of several people.

Called Broward Motorsports in West Palm Beach: They will not accept used helmets and have no idea what to do with old helmets. They suggested selling the old helmet on eBay. I asked the person I talked with what he does with his old helmets and he says he keeps them "with his stuff." It was not an issue for him. I didn't ask further, but I assume it is less of an issue because he probably gets an employee discount so he doesn't feel the hurt of the full value of a $120 helmet.

Spoke with a classmate in plastics who confirmed the mix of materials makes recycling not a viable option. In case you didn't know, most helmets have EPS foam liner, nylon or polyethylene straps, a plastic buckle and the shell is plastic maybe PET but maybe polycarbonate, fiberglass or ABS hard shell.

Spoke with the boyfriend, his helmet was $400 (whoa! and that was on sale!), some sort of specialty helmet. He never thought about what he would do if he didn't need it anymore, he just assumed he would resell it on eBay. In reality, I think it would retain a good amount of its original value if it hasn't formed to his headshape too much or if the new user has a similar headshape to him. I guess an average height male has a better chance at finding a resale customer than me, a taller than average female. Some quick googling found out that nearly 25% of riders (helmet-users) are female. Just knowing what kind of shoppers we are though, we are not going to get a resale helmet and jeopardize our safety for a discount.

Talked to another rider who sold all the gear when he sold the bike, didn't even occur to him there might be difficulty selling a used helmet.

5) Reflect. Helmet buyers are not thinking about the disposal process until years later, when they need to. Disposal problems only come up if they can't resell the helmet easily.

For some reason, getting manufacturers to care about environmental disposal or getting consumers involved is difficult. A promising program in Portland failed.

This need is probably applicable to bicycle helmets

6) Repeat twice more steps 3, 4, and 5. Please be explicit with each step in your blog post.

7) Summarize. At first, I thought this was a huge, obvious opportunity for motorcycle helmet part recycling. Then I realized, not all motorcycle helmet buyers and users are experiencing the same scenario I am.

Since I bought my helmet in the last few years, perhaps I'm subject to a younger generation that has grown up with warnings to only buy new helmets, never used. So I'm part of a new group experiencing difficulty reselling the helmet, and has guilt over (1) not recycling and (2) keeping junk items in my home.

The reasons to get rid of a helmet are limited.
1) You were in an accident, in which case the helmet is trashed and belongs in the trash (you think trash, not recycling). You're not thinking about the environment, you're thinking damn I'm lucky to be alive, and perhaps the emergency crew took care of throwing away the trash like the helmet scraps.

2) You are getting rid of the bike. In that case, keeping the helmet on the shelf might be a nice way to remember the good ol days of riding. The gear really doesn't take up much space, you may forget you even have it and it becomes more of a memento. Helmets don't have the commitment that financing a motorcycle does, and they look cool as part of all the gear and sports equipment in the garage. Alternatively the helmet and gloves might be part of the package, i.e. selling the bike and everything related to it. 

 

Otherwise, people keep their helmets, especially as rider helmets. The helmets that get thrown away are more likely bicycle helmets. Many more people have bicycle helmets and bike helmets need thrown away when they start to erode, look gross, or otherwise become unsafe to wear.

Is there a trade-off between adapting and staying firm? Absolutely, but I think this scenario is closer to the invention of grocery carts. Shopper didn't know they needed or wanted this convenience, so they needed taught. I think getting manufacturers to change their materials is worth it and consumers can be educated that knowing where the helmet goes when it "dies" is important when they buy a helmet. Just like the marketing push to teach people to wear a helmet has been effective, teaching people to buy environmentally friendly materials can be used too, we need an environmentally friendly helmet to be manufactured first though in order to buy it!