What's your small idea?

[Scratch]

All hotel rooms to have just one big light in the middle of the room rather than lots of smaller lights that require a certain switch combination sequence to turn them on or off.

I’m probably only staying one night, I don’t have time to learn which switches turn which light off. I just want to put my socks and pants on and fuck off.

I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in a hotel room that has enough light and just one big one with one switch would surely be a simple solution.

[wordsfromlee]

15 hours ago, Browser Brady said:

Definitely going to go full Partridge here. 
 

Traffic light labelling system for recycling household waste

. To make it easier to sort with just a quick glance .

 

Green = Ok to recycle as is.

Amber = Some attention is needed, consult packaging instructions. Such as removing the lid off a tube of Pringles for example.

Red = Cannot be recycled.

 

Once products are actually produced with this labelling system then you can track what companies are making the most “Green” or “Red” products and you could actually publish some sort of league table showing who is producing the most products that are easier to recycle and who is not…

 

 

It all depends on what recycling facilities your local area has. Stuff that is recyclable in my area maybe not be in yours.  
 

Same reason as to why different areas have different coloured bins and need their recycling separated in different ways to other areas. 

[Briefcase]

On 10/15/2026 at 2:23 PM, Gus Mears said:

Ban estate agencies from using AI in listings.

Already among the biggest bunch of dickheads in Britain, it's now fine for them to share pictures of properties that have no resemblance whatsoever to reality above and beyond clever photography. Finding a rental recently was even more of a nightmare than usual due to this.

Not quite AI but when I moved into a rental it was a new build so as you can imagine the pictures were near perfect as everything was new and shiney. 

When we moved a few years later the estate agent used the same pictures when advertising for the next tenants which I thought was misleading, the place was still newish but had some wear/tear (wasn't the greatest of new builds). 

[Dai]

Seems like a lot of people haven't read the "small, do-able" part of the brief, when theres been stuff like the following suggested:

- Supermarkets to spend 10s of millions every year on bouncers to stop kids and families going in (solution; pay a couple of quid and get home deliveries)

- Magic phones that somehow know when youre on public transport and can in real time cap the volume.

- Changing every single piece of packaging in the UK, to the tune of hundreds of millions, just so a hanful of people are not confused maybe once or twice a year about where a tiny (in the grand scheme of things) item goes, plastics or general waste.

 

Mine would be to ban all loyality schemes in supermarkets. You shouldn't have to have Nectar or a Club card to get the best price for something. 

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

Couple of easy wins:

Universal tins - Looking at you Heinz for using non-stackable tins!

People selling boiled eggs - precooked and shelled so loads of packaging for them! If only there was some sort of natural casing they could come in so you didn't need to waste everyone's time opening them up..same goes for peeled oranges and other fruits and vegetables.

Extend the time the doors open depending on attendance. If there's 400 people in then 30mins is enough. If there's 40,000 then 30mins isn't enough time...All In was a prime example for this 

[Chest Rockwell]

1 hour ago, Dai said:

Magic phones that somehow know when youre on public transport and can in real time cap the volume.

That is actually a relatively simple technical solution. There's just no demand for it. You'd have to provide a way to override it because it would be fallible, and the people who need it most wouldn't use it / would deactivate it. 

[JNLister]

Adding to the cinema demands, the BBFC rating screen should also tell you whether there are any in-credits/post-credits scenes.

[wordsfromlee]

1 hour ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

People selling boiled eggs - precooked and shelled so loads of packaging for them! If only there was some sort of natural casing they could come in so you didn't need to waste everyone's time opening them up..same goes for peeled oranges and other fruits and vegetables.

Yeah, fuck all those people with mobility issues who can’t peel a boiled egg or an orange. I tell my nan all the time that I couldn’t give less of a fuck about her arthritic hands or that she can’t grip a knife properly to chop an onion. 

[Dai]

57 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

That is actually a relatively simple technical solution. There's just no demand for it. You'd have to provide a way to override it because it would be fallible, and the people who need it most wouldn't use it / would deactivate it. 

Is it a simple solution? I'm curious, how could my phone know that I am on a bus and not a car?

 

And yeah, the amount of people who would buy a boiled egg in its shell would be a fraction of who buy them now. Even with this option, its not as if the supermarket is boiling the eggs out in the back and can just put them on the shelf in an egg tray. They'd still need the exact same amount of packaging because of the transportation.

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

40 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

Yeah, fuck all those people with mobility issues who can’t peel a boiled egg or an orange. I tell my nan all the time that I couldn’t give less of a fuck about her arthritic hands or that she can’t grip a knife properly to chop an onion. 

We managed for yonks without creating more plastic packaging for these items. Plus there are aids to assist with these problems rather than paying for expensive pre packaged food. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

36 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

We managed for yonks without creating more plastic packaging for these items. Plus there are aids to assist with these problems rather than paying for expensive pre packaged food. 

No. Its not that we managed for yonks without the packaging, its that they weren't sold until the packaging was developed so they could be easily sold. It's easy to eat a boiled egg at home or a pickled egg anywhere, but to buy an actual boiled egg from a shop hasn't always been as easy as it is now. 

[Supremo]

When we were at university (twenty three years ago, for fuck's sake), my mate announced to the group that he'd invented the sport, "Folf," which was golf, but with footballs and giant holes. Everyone laughed at him. To this day, the Whatsapp group is regularly updated with a photo whenever anyone sees a FootGolf course in the wild. He's still convinced he lost out on millions because no-one took him seriously.

Edited 9 hours ago by Supremo

[SuperBacon]

17 minutes ago, Supremo said:

When we were at university (twenty three years ago, for fuck's sake), my mate announced to the group that he'd invented the sport, "Folf," which was golf, but with footballs and giant holes. Everyone laughed at him. To this day, the Whatsapp group is regularly updated with a photo whenever anyone sees a FootGolf course in the wild. He's still convinced he lost out on millions because no-one took him seriously.

This has reminded me, and I think I even mentioned it on here, but I genuinely came up with the idea of walking football when I worked for a housing association and am also convinced that a manager sold the idea to Barclays, who then "invented" it.

Solidarity with your mate, and I'll join him in small claims court if he wants