Rico srl
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
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Project Description
Having started with a balance bike then a ukulele, Rico intends to create a line of cardboard-based recyclable products for daily use. They are designed to be assembled at home, so parents (or grand parents) and children spend time together building the object, sharing practical knowledge and educating each other about respect for the environment. The aim for Rico is to change people’s perception of objects, with a shift towards increased sustainability.
Geographical Scope
Project Region
Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
EU Programme or fund
Which funds
Description of the project
Summary
Rico is a project who believes could have a real impact on people's consumption habits. Rico has as purpose to build a line of sustainable and recyclable products for daily use.
The first product we developed is a balance bike 95% made of cardboard. There are no similar products on the market. The great thing about this balance bike is that is meant to be built by parents (or grandparents) with the child (or grandchild) together in order to spend some quality time together. The balance bike arrives at home with single components and an instruction book to build it. During the constructions happens 3 things (that are basically the purpose of our project): 1) the parent and the child spend some time together; 2) there is a transmission of practical knowledge between the parent and the kid; 3) there is a transmission of value, respect for the nature and the environments in general from the parent to the child. This is exactly what Rico aims to do: create a community of sustainable people who consciously decide to buy sustainable products and educate their children to this mindset.
Our second product was a cardboard ukulele, made for more than 90% by cardboard. Music is a fundamental part of everybody’s life nowadays, especially in education. Why don’t do it with a sustainable product, rather than a metallic/plastic one?
Key objectives for sustainability
What we would like to do is to create final products that can be completely and 100% recycled in a continuous way.
Ideally, one day, we would like to purchase back the broken or not used anymore product from our customers and use these materials who came back to produce other products in order to become self-sufficient and to achieve the objective “zero environmental impact”.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
One of our founders (we can say our main founder and CEO of the project) is a designer.
He started this project 3 years ago. What makes our products a real revolution is not only that they’re made with cardboard, but that they’re aesthetically appealing (see pictures enclosed), resistant, and perfectly functional from a technical point of view.
We want also that the child who builds our products with his hands develops not only manual skills but also design skills and vision.
Key objectives for inclusion
One of the main purposes of our project is to give to every child the possibility to have a toy to play with.
Unfortunately at the moment, this is not possible.
Many children from all over the world have no access to toys. Building toys with such an economic material like cardboard would give us to create toys with a really low cost in order to make them accessible also to third countries children.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
Environmental sustainability, aesthetics, and inclusivity are 3 key concepts behind our project.
Environmental sustainability – our products are already environmentally sustainable and we aim to improve that aspect more and more by purchasing back products once the usage ends.
Aesthetics – our products are bord from a design mind and the design and the beautiful aspect is something that is essential in all the products we produce.
Inclusivity – for all the children of the world. Not only for their leisure time but especially for their education.
