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Interview 1

Who Did You Interview?

  • I interviewed my coding teacher.

Demographics That Might Provide Helpful Context for Their Responses

  • Male
  • Older than me (25 years old)
  • Works as a coding teacher and technician
  • Lives with his parents and his sister
  • Lives in an urban city

Key Findings from the Interview

  • What comes to mind when you hear the term "waste" used in a green way?
  • My coding teacher thinks of unusable items that have no purpose in having around. As a technician, he has seen people abandon their computers, phones, androids, etc. However, he sees these electronics as an opportunity to restore and learn about them. If a piece is not salvageable, then it is truly considered "waste."

  • What kind of waste do you care most about and why?
  • For him, it's between food waste and chemical waste. Food waste annoys him sometimes because he sees people order too much and throw away what they don't need. He thinks that wasting food leads to a domino effect: wasting food leads to more food getting ordered, which leads to more trucks delivering food, and etc. That waste (both food and chemical) builds up and hurts the environment. He thinks that this waste is essentially "wasting" the earth. Additionally, batteries are a huge hazard as they can cause huge risks if not thrown away properly.

  • How do you reduce waste in your life?
  • He puts plastics and glasses in a big bag and takes them down to the recyclers and exchanges them. This allows those materials to be recycled properly. He's careful with what he buys; as humans, we tend to buy a lot of things. Although he sometimes buys things that he doesn't need, he tries to limit his "wants" because he knows most of them will often end up in the trash. He is also careful about what he throws away as well: just because something is trash doesn't mean it actually goes in the trash.

  • How are you or the people around you contributing to waste?
  • He's seen a lot of waste at Starbucks. There were definitely a lot of people who wasted who were unwilling to use an old cup to refill; there was even one customer who wanted a double cup for each cup of refill. Sometimes, he would throw out a page that has something written on it rather than reuse it in the future. He's also known a few people who throw away perfectly good clothes. He's also encountered people who throw away broken electronics rather than trying to repair them.

  • What kind of product do you think would help reduce the waste you mentioned in the earlier question or just waste in general?
  • He thinks a reusable cup would be an awesome way to reduce waste. There's also a machine that can estimate the price of an electronic which can allow consumers to recycle their phones and get some money back as well. Something that recycles just cans and bottles would be nice as well. As for food, he's unsure what kind of product would work.