By Ann Marie Newton for QHQ
I came to an abrupt stop recently, not in a car, but on foot. I don’t remember the last time I came to such an abrupt stop, but that’s one of the things about travelling: you are often confronted with different things to navigate, and some of them stop you in your tracks. In this instance it was a rubbish bin. Yes, a rubbish bin.
Visiting Vancouver from London in June 2022 and after enjoying a tasty lunch from one of the stalls in Granville Market, I was looking for a place to dispose of the container my lunch came in. A row of rectangle boxes on the floor, with different colour tops looked promising so I headed over. What stopped me, in addition to a red sign which said Arret/Stop, was a combination of the size of the aperture and the labelling. This was on the section that I’m used to seeing as general waste. Here it was labelled as landfill and the opening was small, far too small for me to casually throw my lunch container in had I wanted to. This rubbish bin made me stop and think.
Fig. 1 Photo by author of rubbish collection point, Granville Island Public Market, Vancouver.
Fig.1 is a photograph I took of the top of the containers. As you can see there is an actual stop sign on the top of the landfill section. Note also the questions asked: Is this actually Garbage? Could it be recycled? Does it belong with Food Scraps? There is also a lack of visual clues on the landfill section, which made it less desirable to use. The combination of colour, graphics including lack of, and text make a compelling case to keep as much as possible out of landfill. This set of bins prompted me to consider what I was doing and what would be the best course of action. I recalled a sign that all the containers from the stall I visited were compostable, so in it went into the food scrap section.
This struck me as fantastic design: Firstly, that the general waste bin was labelled as landfill, after all that is where everything that goes in there will end up, in a big pile somewhere out of sight. Secondly that the aperture was so small, this physically made me stop and consider what I was doing, I couldn’t just toss something in there, unless it was very small. I imagine this must minimise how much goes to landfill. The City of Vancouver has a target to become a ‘zero-waste community’ by 2040. Progress has been made since 2008 with solid waste going to landfill or incinerator being reduced by 30%, see Fig. 2 (These figures reflect household as well as public waste.)
Fig. 2 City of Vancouver website graphic showing progress made towards the Zero Waste 2040 goal – vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/zero-waste-vancouver.aspx
In 2016-2017, Recycle BC non-profit based in British Columbia, conducted a pilot study in Vancouver where they tested alternative receptacle designs. The study found that the design of the bins had a direct impact on people’s behaviour. Specifically, they investigated what about the design of the stations made the biggest differences:
“A number of factors influenced how residents selected which bin to put their material in, but the most frequently utilized element was the graphic icons – 39 percent said they used these visual clues to locate the correct recycling bin. In comparison, 32 percent of people said they used the colors of the bin to help them sort, and 29 percent said text descriptions assisted them.”
I’m surprised the percentages are not larger for each category in this study, but this interesting research supports my own experience and is a fascinating area for further investigation and testing.
“Through the study it became apparent that the recycling stations can affect recycling behaviors.” – Recycle BC
According to a 2020 report by the UK government we only send 44% of our household refuse to recycling. Therefore, this leaves lots of scope for improvement in this area both for households and public areas. Of course, human behaviour at the point of collection is only one piece of the puzzle, but reduction of litter in public places and encouragement to keep more of our material resources out of landfill, can only be for the better. We do need to address all the systems around collection sorting, reuse, recycling, and disposal. I often wonder if what I put into a recycle bin will get recycled or not. However, understanding more about the relationship between design of these facilities and human behaviour is an important aspect in future transformation.
The example in Vancouver helps me imagine how we might design, develop, and implement more effective bins for the reuse and recycling of a whole range of materials. I would like to see stations like those in Fig. 1 in my local neighbourhood. Also, it would be interesting to apply some of these design ideas to the collection of other materials such as textiles. Currently, bins for textiles when you can find one, have just has one slot into which everything goes. There is capacity for a more sophisticated version: where people have more input and therefore responsibility for the sorting of textiles. What ideas do you have for textile or other material collection bins? Have you seen any great examples of how we might do things differently? What fantastic designs can you imagine?