Observed Behaviors - CoHo

Link to Student
Journal Entry For
Notes from Observing
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Please spend some time observing peoples’ behaviors relating to disposing of their food, containers, wrappers, utensils, and other waste at specific campus location where food is served and/or eaten. Then share your initial observations in a few paragraphs below…
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I sat at coho for almost an hour, observing this waste center. I think the signage combined with the three separate holes are great for sorting. Another plus about Coho is that they have begun to use compostable cups and utensils. Most of their containers are also washable and reusable (plates, bowls, metal utensils). In my hour sitting here, this waste organizer saw almost no use. Most of the costumers went to the other disposal center by the exit as it is more visible and more efficient (as it is on the way out). The issue with this is the center by the exit is much less organized. As you can see below, the biggest and most readily accessible option is landfill while compost and recycling are out of the way and blocked.

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The two uses of this center:

One man had a clearly compostable cup with a lid and without a glance, threw all of it into the recycling container. This seems like more of an awareness/care issue.

One man had two compostable cups, a compostable spoon, and many reusable ceramic plates. He glanced at all the signs and put both the cups and the spoon into the compost. He had some remaining food and trash in his bowl but placed all those items into the landfill. It seems like for efficiency he placed everything in the bowl to get it to the trash but that made it difficult to separate and not worth the time to properly sort.