In January 2014, SFU launched its comprehensive Zero Waste program on all campuses as another step to achieve the goal of “diverting 70 per cent of landfill waste into recycling and composting by the end of 2015,” according to the SFU Sustainability Office.
The Zero Waste Program was designed to help reduce the amount of waste that is sent to landfills, and consists of four containers for different types of materials. By differentiating recyclable materials from non-recyclable waste, it aims to increase the percentage of recycling and reuse of misplaced resources.
However, as a fourth-year design and media arts student at SFU Surrey, years of studying user behaviour and product design have led me to notice some of the design flaws of garbage containers, specifically at Surrey campus.
During the spring semester, I saw a pile of coffee cups and food containers over-filling the corresponding containers in some high traffic areas. The design of these recycle bins did not meet the demand of garbage disposal from students.
When it comes to throwing away garbage, people aren’t prepared for such a difficult process.
The first problem with these garbage bins is that each separate container is of identical size, and, in order to not take up much space, each is very narrow. Their small openings also make them hard to use.
Garbage comes in various sizes and shapes, not all of which can easily fit these narrow opening: a flattened box fits in the opening pretty well, but a plastic fruit container does not. When it comes to throwing away garbage, people aren’t prepared for such a difficult process.
The size of each garbage bin does not meet the volume and size factor of particular garbage disposal. It is easy to understand that a thin piece of paper takes less space than an empty plastic bottle — the mixed paper bin is more than roomy enough for paper, but will not hold as many recyclable bottles. This means some bins require more frequent empties otherwise they will easily overfill.
These problems indicate that the design of the receptacles has failed to accommodate students’ garbage disposal demands, and this is where user design plays a vital role to ensure that a product works as expected. Sustainable innovation does not automatically lead to sustainable user behaviour; it is the design that influences users to more sustainable behaviour.
If a designer designs a product in such a way — i.e. different sized bins to accommodate different sized waste — it increases the likelihood that students dispose of garbage in environmentally conscious ways, following the instructions and acting greenly.
When students see an overfilled Zero Waste collection station with all kinds of misplaced garbage, they aren’t likely to follow any instruction, and simply toss their trash anywhere.
Designing bins that make unsustainable behaviour difficult or even impossible, while sustainable behaviour is easy to achieve or even automatic, would boost the effectiveness of the Zero Waste idea: students would not have a hard time disposing of garbage, instead their sense of approval with the Zero Waste program would increase.
As a first step, can we at least start by making the recyclable and landfill bins larger on satellite campuses, like they are in Burnaby?
And if we have time, let’s consult a new designer.
