IH02-Ryan Jue
From IEOR 170 Spring 2007
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Waste management is a major problem in a country where we produce about 11.7 billion tons of non-hazardous waste every year. Of this waste in 2005, paper and paperboard made up 34%. Glass and plastics made up between 5-12% of the waste. This amounts for about half of the waste per year. Waste management may be an enormous problem, but recycling can solve half the problem.
[edit] Target User Group
Given the semester's theme for projects of "Persuasive Design for Campus, City and Community", I'd like to focus on the undergraduate students of UC Berkeley. These students not only populate the campus at day, but they're a major component of the city and community as well. Also, since I am part of this demographic, I feel that I have a better understanding as well for the design aspects to keep in mind.
I would segment this group through the following: - temporary resident of Berkeley - generally uses disposable items like food containers, cans, plastic utensils, newspapers, etc. - primarily uses foot-traffic to get around - uses an abundance of paper (ie. classes, finals, notes, flyering, handbilling)
[edit] Problem Description
With college students at UC Berkeley using so many disposable items every day, it can be a cause of the high waste problem. While Berkeley does have numerous recycling containers located on campus, most students over look these containers in favor of larger and more numerous trash cans or littering on campus or in classrooms. This causes problems for the environment, waste management and the janitorial staff.
[edit] Problem Context and Forces
The issues in this problem are due to two main reasons: apathy and lack of opportunity.
[edit] Apathy
Students are just generally apathetic to their actions and how it may affect the environment. A lot of this comes from the thought that someone else will pick up after me and therefore the responsibility has shifted away from the student. A large design factor is how to make the target group, college students, to feel responsible and want to active participate in recycling using the various recycle containers across the campus.
[edit] Lack of Opportunity
Lack of opportunity is the other main factor in getting students to participate. While the obvious solution is to increase the number of bins available on campus, a better solution would look for a way to provide better incentives for students to use the pre-existing containers that are located around campus.
[edit] Potential Solution Sketches
The potential solution is an improved container where the students can swipe their student ID cards to get credit for recycling. This solution isn't fully worked out, but ideas for types of incentive credit can be reduced university fees, potentially campus store credit or food credit at the dining commons:
Left: This is the current recycle bins that are far too infrequent across campus. Right: This is the proposed new design adding the ability to get credit for recycling by swiping your student ID on the side.
Left: This shows the door where the recycleables can be placed. The container will allow it to be weight to determine the credit gained from this contribution to the environment. Right: This shows the student ID identifier. It is similar to the keycard access devices that are on campus.
[edit] Resources
1. US Recycling Statistics: http://www.tufts.edu/tuftsrecycles/USstats.htm
