Please describe a domain or an area of opportunity that you’d like to use as the focus for the design of a PRODUCT, SERVICE, or BUILT FEATURE that supports or promotes sustainable behaviors and practices for INDIVIDUALS in day-to-day use.
For this first design project, focus your thinking on:
a PRODUCT -- something physical that can be manufactured, distributed, purchased, and potentially held in your hand or carried with you.
a SERVICE or APPLICATION -- something that you can order, subscribe to, or use (in-person or online) -- that will support and promote the sustainability and resilience goals of your potential users.
a SPACE, PLACE, or BUILDING FEATURE — that supports or promotes sustainability in the day-to-day activities of individual users.
Please share your initial thoughts in a few paragraphs below…
The domain that I’d like to focus on is waste management and renewable energy, particularly in the context of urban living and restaurants. The idea of turning waste materials into reusable ones has always intrigued me. This reduces the amount of waste that makes it to landfills and guarantees that available resources are well utilized. The service of interest is the collection of frying oil from restaurants and households to produce biofuel.
This area is important/interesting to me because according to the USDA, global vegetable oil consumption is set to reach 212.9 million metric tons in 2023. Most of this oil will be used by restaurants and households. Due to various reasons, people often dispose of such oil inappropriately. This leads to environmental pollution and humanitarian hardships. On the other hand, there is a rising demand for sustainable and renewable energy sources. This presents an opportunity to develop a service that efficiently collects used frying oil and processes it into biofuel.