OVERVIEW

America’s Recycling Problem is ever-increasing. People know the benefits of recycling but still many people don’t recycle correctly. Febreze all in one home smart recycling system is designed specifically for homeowners who wants to make recycling a part of their daily routine and contribute to the environment.

THE CLIENT

Procter & Gamble - Academic Project

TIMELINE

3 weeks sprint - Fall 2018

MY ROLE

Research, Physical Prototyping

TEAM

Kelii Lum and Stella

The Challenge

Not knowing where to put trash - does it go in recycle, landfill or compost? Although we have technology at our disposal, the recycling system has not much advanced with times. Design a solution that makes recycling simple and convenient for the home owners.

Proposed Solution

An all in one recycling system that does all the sorting for the user. The system comes with separate receptacles, a digital interface and a sensor. It makes recycling as intuitive and efficient as possible. This system is specifically designed for home usage.

Research

Methodologies: Secondary Research & Primary Research (Questionnaire, User Interviews + observations)

The goal of this phase was to identify the goals, needs, and frustrations of the individuals to design a better solution for them. The idea was to understand America’s Recycling problem and explore people’s current recycling behavior/habits.

SECONDARY RESEARCH

The secondary research mainly relied on understanding the current state of waste disposal in America. The research revealed some surprising statistics & facts.

Americans encourage recycling but are unable to make recycling a routine
America is running out of landfill space.
Only half of the Americans recycle daily.
America doesn’t enforce recycling.
It will take a combination of government policy, corporate responsibility, community will, and individual effort to raise America’s recycling rate.

PRIMARY RESEARCH

Survey Findings

To obtain quantitative data about users’ recycling habits and their awareness about recycling, a survey was created and sent out to people. The following rsults were obtained

Survey Insights about recycling habits

Interviews + Observations

To better understand our target audience’s needs, goals and painpoints while recycling, we gathered data from field observations and interviewed our target audience to analyze their daily trash disposal habits. This data helped us in finding opportunities to solve the problems.

Some of the questions include:

Why do you think recycling is important?
What kind of recycling system you have at home?
Can you walkme through your current recycling experience?
What are some of the challenges you face in your current recycling experience?

Quotes that stood out from the interviews

Key Takeaways

Users mentioned that it is most difficult to recycle at home because they do not have the space to install separate trash cans for different trash type.
People want a way to make recycling a routine rather than an obligation
People understand the benefits of recycling and said they are willing to make an effort if it is convenient and quick.
The primary reason respondents gave for not recycling was that they were not sure what is recyclable and what is not. Other reasons include factors like time, cost, lack of awareness and forgetfullness.
When trash is out of sight, it is “out of mind”, unfortunately a few respondents feel that recycling is not required and are unaware of the problem it can cause. Recycling process is inconvenient and complex for people.

Define

Methodologies: Persona, Customer Journey Map

PERSONA

Based on our research data, we created a persona that represents the needs and the problems faced by our respondents: the confused TODD.

TODD, 19 years old
Student, Living in California

Frustrations

Struggles to make recycling a part of his routine.
Do not know what is recyclable and what is not.
Sorting trash
No space to install different bins, inconvenient and messy process

Needs

Quick and convenient recyling
Awareness about Recycling
Making recycling a routine rather than an obligation
Assurance about correctly recycling trash

JOURNEY MAP

To get an in-depth knowledge about their current recycling experience, we mapped out their journey to analyze the pain-points, their actions, feelings and their emotions in different phases. Also, this helped us in looking for product opportunities.

Ideating the Solution

Methodologies: Feature Mapping and Concept Sketching

Based on the pain-points that our persona faced, all the team members came up with different ideas. Ideas were then brainstormed to design a solution that addressed the user frustrations. After a lot of brainstorming, the features were decided.

Since the challenge was to envision the future, so we assumed that the year 2048 would be the age of fully automated smart products and brainstormed our solution features.

Features

Full touch digital display
Febreze sensor that detects the user presence and automatically opens the bin door for the user.
Sensor detects the type of waste user is throwing and sorts it for the user
Retractable trash can flap for more space
A compressor that compresses the trash and makes more space available.
Separate receptacles for Compost, Recyclable and Landfill trash eliminating the need for multiple bins
Educates the user about the items their community recycles
Provides user about their contribution to the environment

Watch the product video here-

TODAY AND FURTHER ON

Learnings

I learned how to work within a multi-discipline team and developed the ability to scope down ideas into a complete solution that targets our user.
This project was an excellent opportunity for me to use research findings to define the design question and to make design decisions.
Through this project, I got to experience and learn from a rapid design approach to a project. I learned the value of designing rapidly so that I could fail fast and validate designs quickly

However, since we had to finish the project within an academic timeline, we did not have enough time to design the whole feature of compressing the trash and emptying the trash can. Also, we focused majorly on the designing a trash can for home usage because our participants are homeowners trying to make recycling a part of their daily lives. For the future development of this project, we will conduct usability tests with people to get their opinions about the product and delve deeper into their problems and refine our solution to increase user satisfaction.

Smart Trash Can

Febreze All in One Smart Recycling System for Homes