An experience that relates to my essential question is one that happened in the ‘sustainable cities’ course I took last summer. The last project of the program was to find an urban problem, like waste management or plastic bags, and then design a solution for it. When creating the solution, we had to consider how people would interact with it, what materials we would use, and what was the easiest way to implement it. My group’s project was about cigarette waste, which is actually a surprisingly huge problem. Cigarettes not only contribute to a lot of litter on the street; they also have a lot of harmful chemicals that get into bodies of water through storm drains. Through surveys, we figured out that the big contributor to the waste problem was that people just threw them on the ground, instead of properly disposing of them. This was because there either wasn’t any place to dispose of them nearby, or that this was just a habit people had, and it was like part of the experience. To create a solution, there needed to be a factor that would draw people in and incentivize them to properly dispose of them. Something that we felt incentivized people was this “voting” trash bin mechanism where there were two clear compartments. To easily implement this solution, we considered where these bins could be located, and who would benefit most from them. We realized that businesses and restaurants would benefit from having cleaner store fronts, and they could be installed with the property owner’s permission for free. The city could be responsible for clearing out the bins, and recycle them through a private existing company.
This experience really relates to my essential question because it involves considering how users, city services, and businesses interact to serve an environmental interest. I definitely learned a lot from this experience, and while my project’s purpose isn’t exactly an ‘environmental’ one, this knowledge can help me moving forward when thinking about how people will use the space I create, and how can surrounding businesses benefit from it as well.
Kate, that’s an interesting connection to a problem that we often don’t “see.” I think you are correct when you talk about the “habits” that have developed around a particular kind of experience. It is easy to design a technical solution, but if that solution doesn’t take in the realities of human behavior and social habits, it’s not likely to have much of an impact and can actually result in a lot of wasted human resources and materials. How might these insights apply to your current project?