Link to Student
Journal Entry For
Prototype WIP
- This morning I spent some time observing how my apartment kitchen is designed. I was having breakfast with my house mate and I observed him collecting the trash from our apartment to bring them to the waste disposal room we have in our floor. He was struggling, bent under the washbasin, because a plastic package didn’t fit the tiny bins. Also, after he pulled one bag up it was hard to close, even with very few garbage in it and he was very bothered because he doesn’t like to have plastic bags all around with the bigger garbage that doesn’t fit. At the same time, I finished my orange juice (I bought a big can from Trader Joe) and noticed that it was bigger than the bin itself. I noticed that - even if inside the Recycling /Landfill room you can find all the propers collectors and informations, it’s very hard to do that inside the apartment because the form of the trash bins is so bad. They’re very tiny and there are no instructions on how to use them to properly divide stuff.
- DOMAIN: garbage disposal / recycling
- So I thought that the apartment trash bins could be re-designed:
- labels in each bin to help students to put everything in separated bins with the same logic of the collectors in the recycling room
- bigger bins (a simple Pringles package is hard to fit in!)
- a QR code at the entrance with instructions on how to recycle properly (as a foreigner students I know that rules can change from country to country)
- Going further, in order to commit people to recycle more, landfill bins could be locked and you could open them with your ID but with a fixed amount of usage per month, and after that you have to pay (just a rough / maybe crazy idea to be refined)
- SIZE OF THE PROBLEM: I spoke with my house mate and a few other students and all confirmed that they basically don’t recycle in their apartment because it’s too complicated: also some of them are not so into the US regulations about garbage disposal so even if they would recycle, they make mistakes. So basically this makes the whole purpose of having big recycling bins in our floor pointless. I think it could be a good fit to improve this not only for the actual impact on the amount of recycling but also for building a consistent message of commitment towards sustainability all around the campus.
- GAMIFICATION / EDUCATION : noted - I need to interview my housemate and dig deeper into the level of education that could be provided
