The Hazard of Unending Garbage
Cities are grounds for most of our stubborn, wasteful practices. The daily commute in automobiles, power consumption by our appliances, buildings, shopping trends, our entire lifestyle is the never-ending source of wastes that end up spending many centuries in landfills.
Waste generation is a major concern today, contributing to pollution and climate change. About 3.4 billion tons of wastes are expected to be generated globally, by the year 2050. Even though it is a problem that has to be tackled by capitalism on a larger scale, reduction of waste can be done with individual efforts as well.
Urbanization has made cities the epicenter for waste generation, causing deterioration of hygiene and sanity. Landfills are more than just eyesores, they contain toxins, polluting air, land, and groundwater. While the methods to manage this amount of waste are evolving, they are not efficient enough to handle the inflow.
Can we avoid or reduce the amount of trash that will end up in landfills?
Urgent need for better waste management strategies
Landfills are part of waste management systems, from early times. It came up by functional means, but its damage was unknown, for as they say, ‘out of sight, out of mind’. As the veil of negligence is being lifted by its tangible effects, the entire waste management system is under scrutiny.
Trash, over the years, has become synonymous with plastic. 8 million pieces of plastic end up in our oceans, each day. It is a dangerous invention by mankind, and its presence and effects last forever. It is unnecessary and must be avoided.
The investigation also reveals careless disposal of all wastes is a huge problem linking to landfills. Everyone is eager to dispose of waste from their immediate environments, neglecting its handling. This problem worsens, when we move out in public places and litter without regret, in the absence or even presence of trash cans. City management must take responsibility for issues of shortage or overflow of trash bins, but the attitude change in people is of paramount concern.
How can designers play a part in encouraging people to use trash bins?
Brief of the Competition
A great way of luring people into doing something is to incentivize the act. There are ways to do this, but budget constraints might be a hindrance, and we end up with sub-optimal trash bins.
Brief: The challenge of the competition is to design a public trash can/bin of dimension 2m x 2m for the 21st century while encouraging people to use it, through its design.
The aim of the challenge is to understand how design can be a tool to incentivize the act of using trash bins. The design of trash bins can experiment with unconventional forms. The design must be able to capture the attention of people, passing by it. The aesthetic must be balanced with the functional purpose of bins.
Trash bins are public facilities that are made to be accessible to all types of users, without hassle. Systems can be incorporated to ease use and add sophistication to the process of disposal. These bins are designed to promote conscious and efficient disposal of trash, so its material or technique used, must not harm the environment.
Design Objectives
- Concept — The idea of incentive must be incorporated in the design. Aesthetics may involve material usage and color palette.
- Compact — The bin must be transportable, modular, and easy to install
- Convenience — Efficient working, disposing, or storing of waste. Easy access and system use.
- Technology — How can incentives be enabled via tech? How can waste management be optimized via software or big data?
- Economic — the design must be applicable in large numbers and different regions
Originally published at https://uni.xyz
