Boxoffice Pro - January 2020

that cost more in the short term are
designed to generate long-term savings.
This is true of HaloVino, a plastic wine
glass that is reusable, dishwasher-safe,
stackable, and stemless. “It’s expensive to
have a wine glass” instead of a standard
plastic cup, founder Jessica Bell admits.
“But we tend to look at price increase
relative to increased revenue and cost
control. One ounce of over pour can
lead to a dollar to two dollars in loss
of revenue. We have ounce lines on
our cup,” making over pour
easily preventable. Further,
Bell argues, HaloVino’s unique
design—engineered to aerate
wine for a better drinking
experience—ultimately drives
sales. She says that a 5 percent
increase in cost has led in some
cases to an increase in wine
sales by 20 or even 40 percent.
At Alamo, League admits, “compostable
straws cost more.” But staff
members now ask guests if they want a
straw instead of giving them one outright,
leading to an overall decrease of the
number of straws being used. Generally
speaking, “by switching to washable/reusable
products, there is a higher up-front
cost, but we lose the ongoing cost of disposables.
Compostable products are more
expensive, but it drives us to find other
solutions where we drastically cut down
on the amount of those products that we
use. All efforts to save water and energy
end up in cost savings.”
A 3-D CASE STUDY
“It does sound simple to say, ‘Hey, we
decided we’re going to recycle!’ But as
you introduce all these other elements,
it becomes a challenge for sure,” says
Cinemark’s Justice. If the challenge seems
too insurmountable, it’s about time we
turned to a case study that shows how
theaters, customers, and vendors can
work together to pull this whole thing
off: 3-D glasses.
If it seems like customers automatically
toss everything in the trash, regardless
of whether it’s recyclable, it seems equally
true that they’ve gotten pretty good at
tossing their 3-D glasses in the appropriate
receptacle so that they can be sent
off, cleaned, and reused. According to
RealD’s Mike Irvin, vice president, corporate
initiatives, RealD has a “collection
rate” on their glasses of 60 percent, up
from 50 percent two years ago and three
times larger than the approximately 20
percent collection rate they had in 2009,
around the time Avatar was bringing
scores of customers to a 3-D movie for
the first time.
The process of increasing
that collection rate so dramatically,
says RealD operations
manager Brian Somers, has
been one of “trial and error.”
Initially, the collection boxes
were smaller, darker, and
lower to the ground than they
currently are. People would frequently
not see them. When they did see them,
sometimes they would confuse them
with trash cans. “What that was telling
us was that the bins themselves were not
labeled correctly, that we were not being
direct enough in letting people know
that this bin has a specific use, and that’s
recycling,” says Irvin. The bins were
given a pyramid-shaped top, so people
couldn’t rest trash on them. They were
given clearer labels. The newest generation
of RealD’s recycling bins, currently
in development, will be about six feet tall
and a brighter, more easily visible shade
than their current dark blue. The 40
percent of RealD glasses that don’t end
up in the collection bins, as well as the
plastic poly bags they come in, are made
of recyclable plastic themselves, so they
can be recycled locally.
According to Irvin, “Sustainability was
always a core value for” founder Michael
Lewis. “From the very beginning, we’ve
tried to have our 3-D technology reflect
our commitment to sustainability.” At
the same time, “This program would not
work if we didn’t have the support of the
exhibitors.” That communication between
RealD and its exhibitor partners provided
a solution to the dreaded bottleneck problem:
putting one recycling bin outside the
auditorium and another in the lobby or
elsewhere in the theater, with placement
customized to the “pattern of flow” of
each individual location.
In order for RealD to reach the 60
percent collection rate they currently
enjoy—and the higher collection rate they
hope to reach in the future—they needed
not just customers but also theater staff
to know exactly what to do at all points
during the process. “From the operation
side, it’s literally a click of a button,” says
director of global operations Robert Swan.
When a theater orders eyewear, they can
also order the collection boxes, called
RSCs. “When that RSC is delivered to the
theater, it’s already prelabeled. So as soon
as that box is full of recycled eyewear, the
theater just has to close it and put it out
for next-day pickup. We have multiple
pickups scheduled throughout the week,
if not daily. Everything’s at no cost to the
theaters. We’re supplying the RSCs, and
we’re handling the shipping costs to return
the eyewear.”
Looking toward the future, RealD has
had conversations with exhibitors about
getting messaging about recycling on the
theaters’ apps. “How do you get customers
to read messaging and get into the habit
of recycling? The more points that they
can see, the better,” says Somers. “That’s
another thing that we have explored and
continue to explore: the technology front
and how that’s changing.”
MAKING IT HAPPEN
A 2018 Nielsen study showed that 73
percent of consumers would change their
consumption habits if doing so had a
positive impact on the environment. “Everybody
wants to recycle,” argues RealD’s
Irvin. “They want to do the right thing.”
That’s certainly the case for younger generations,
who, argues Cinemark’s Justice,
have grown up with recycling. “For them,
it’s what they do. It’s not ‘Am I going to
this?’ It’s ‘I am going to do this.’” When it
comes to movie theaters, it takes determination
and communication to turn that
willingness into a reality.
28 JANUARY 2020