How are you killing two birds with one stone?

The best innovations are those that kill two birds with one stone.

You exploit the intersection of two unrelated but interesting realities for the benefit of the greater good.

A helpful place to start is by identifying expensive, outdated, useless and wasteful traditions. Think about all the legacy habits, processes and products that society doesn’t really benefit from anymore, but might be too convenient to be killed.

Once you can figure out how to reroute all the time, energy and resources invested in those things into solving more meaningful problems, everybody wins.

I will share an example from my own inventory of business ideas. It has not been patented yet, so feel free to steal it and take all the credit.

The first comes from two staggering statistics you’ve probably read before.

The average person uses eighty rolls of toilet paper per year. Which equates to thirty pounds of trash per year. Do the math, and it adds up to over four million tons of total waste for landfills. Also, the postal service delivers a hundred billion pieces of junk mail annually, or three hundred per person. Do the math, and it adds up to five and half million tons of junk mail for our landfills.

Does anyone else recognize this as a ripe opportunity for innovation?

It’s a match made in heaven. Now, the federal trade commission has a toll free number where people can opt out of junk mail. But good luck stopping that paper train. As long as we live in a capitalistic world, there are always going to be organizations spamming our inboxes.

Meanwhile, there are also numerous proctology experts, environmental activists and advocacy groups touting the dangers and wastes of using toilet paper. But good luck trying to convince a country of puritans to shoot warm water into their rectums twice a day.

And so, rather than trying to obstruct either of these unstoppable forces, junk mail and toilet paper, the solution is redirecting the energy into a more meaningful direction.

Repaper is the name of my service. We are the world’s first shredding, recycling and manufacturing center where you drop off your junk mail to be repurposed as toilet paper. This saves paper to keep our trees in circulation, put those pesky catalogues where they belong, but also allows people to clean themselves with something other than their hand.

Within one year of launch, our product is guaranteed to save millions of tons of waste. Companies won’t have to change any of their marketing campaigns, consumers won’t have to change any of their hygiene habits, and everyone can live together in perfect, shit free harmony.

Repaper uses corporate junk for consumer trunks.

Now that is how you innovate. Two birds, one stone.

What expensive, outdated, useless and wasteful traditions could you leverage to make the world cleaner and safer? Are there any legacy habits, processes and products that society doesn’t benefit from anymore, that you could positively reroute?

That’s all creativity is. The delicate yet dynamic union of two disparate elements. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, we merely have to find two wheels that nobody needs or wants anymore, strip them for parts, keep the pieces that work, and recombine those materials into a new product that drives value for the future.

Sure, the ideas I’ve presented above are unorthodox, grotesque, potentially illegal and almost certainly immoral. But let’s try to keep perspective.

Hell, masturbation was viewed as a sin and a crime in certain parts of the world for thousands of years. Still is to this day in some countries. And yet, the global sex toys market size is valued at over thirty billion dollars.

Clearly, people change. Ideas evolve. Profit motives trump prophet votives. Innovation proves that what was previously considered inconceivable can become possible.

And all it takes is someone to notice the delicate yet dynamic union of two disparate elements and ask the brave question, does anyone else notice this?

Look, just because something is too convenient to be killed, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t die.

We all make sacrifices in this life for the greater good.

How are you killing two birds with one stone?