The Ordinary Nature Of Waste Exploring future waste infrastructure design for reducing the street beverage litter
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ABSTRACT The interest of waste issues started from the news of China’s ban causing Australia’s recycling crisis and the fire of some waste storage warehouse. Waste exists around people every day. We consume and generate waste, but few people think about what places the waste goes to.
The Ordinary Nature of
However, one place pops up - the street. When walking in Melbourne CBD, it’s easy to see some litter along Melbourne’s streets or lanes, and most of them are plastic bottles or coffee cups. Thus, this essay focuses on exploring some facts about street beverage litter and trying to position landscape intervene in the process of reducing litter. The street beverage litter control is not only about increasing litter bins, also a thinking of future waste management and a critic of excessive consumption in modern society. The future strategies related to landscape design will include infrastructure design, public space design, public engaging encouragement and environment education.
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DETAILS OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Litter scattered on the lawn of Southbank. 2. Litter scattered on the lawn of Southbank. 3. Plastic litter on the beach. 4. Litter bin overflow. 5. Litter volume in Victoria 2017/18. 6. Beverage and takeaway food litter volume in different places. 7. Chengdu map. 8. Chengdu tourist map 2019. 9. Taikoo Li, Chengdu. 10. Taikoo Li context, Chengdu. 11. Litter trap on Yarra River. 12. Litter under restaurants outdoor tables. 13. Swanston Street context. 14. Fulled smart bin. 15. Reasons of street litter. 16. Litter bins density. 17. On street parking bay density. 18. Restaurants and cafe with outdoor seats density. 19. Public seats density. 20. Pedestrian volume map. 21. Litter hotspots map. 22. Litter bins density in litter hotspots. 23. City of Melbourne satellite map. 24. Lygon Street Satellite map. 25. Lygon Street context map. 26. First version of lineage map. 27. Second version of lineage map. 28. Claim ground. 29. Managing assets. 30. Precedents. 31. Infrastructure design in short-term actions. 32. Public space design in short-term actions. 33. Public engagement in short-term actions. 34. Environment education in short-term actions. 35. Underground waste collection system in Lygon Street.
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1 INTRODUCTION Why street litter matters? Walking on the street of Melbourne, it always supposed to be an enjoyable journey since Melbourne is famous for its liveable environment. However, I’ve never stopped seeing street litter scattered along the road in Melbourne city, as well as flowing in Yarra River. Those experience drives me to think that why there is so much litter on the street in the world’s most liveable city. Looking back to the history of the waste generation, after the industrial revolution, urban expansion speeded which of course led to waste generation increase. Industry development brought people a convenient modern life, as well as destructive environmental harm, mainly by waste generation. Based on Daniel, Perinaz and Chris’s research, waste generation is on the fastest speed since 2000 to now (Hoornweg, Bhada-Tata and Kennedy 2013). With the on-going cities expansion and population growth, the waste crisis is one of the most severe problem humans will face in the short future.
This picture was taken in Southbank Promenade, Melbourne. Southbank Promenade is one of the busiest streets in Melbourne and is popular for its beautiful water view and diverse restaurants. I took this photo to show the appearance of litter in such a beautiful place. Most of them are beverage litter. The litter just ruined an elegant urban landscape.
FIGURE 1 Litter scattered on the lawn of Southbank Southbank Promenade, Melbourne 18/5/2018
Excessive consumption is one of the most important reasons that caused the acceleration of waste generation which including the street littering increasing. Litter is small waste without proper disposal in public space. Street littering is the behaviour that people drop small pieces of rubbish on the street. It is harmful to both visual aesthetics and environmental impacts. Litter is not attractive and destroys a city’s beauty and cleanness. Litter on the street also cause environmental degradation. It can go into the water system like river and creek through the drainage system, then flow into the ocean in the end. Single-use plastic is the most common litter in the ocean. Litter usually needs to take decades or hundreds of years to degrade which harms Earth’s environment system severely (Almosa, Parkinson and Rundle-Thiele 2017). Street littering commonly come from intentionally discard and accidentally discard. Intentionally discard is easily from smoking and drunk people while accidentally discard may be produced because of litter bin overflow or dropping from rubbish trucks.
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This is another zoom in picture shows the litter on the ground of Southbank Promenade. Lots of people sitting on the lawn and enjoy their free time and meals, then left their litter behind for the environment.
FIGURE 2 Litter scattered on the lawn of Southbank Southbank Promenade, Melbourne 8
18/5/2018
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Litter dropped from overflowed litter bin and wind can bring those litter anywhere. Besides, the pedestrian would choose to throw their litter on the ground if the litter bin is not available.
FIGURE 4 Litter bin overflow Swanston St, Melbourne 16/4/2019
(Frerck 2018)
FIGURE 3
The life cycle of waste
Plastic litter on the beach Inappropriate disposal plastic waste was thrown on the beach or enter the ocean through drainage system then rushed back to the beach. Plastic has become the most severe pollution of the sea and the killer of ocean wildlife. Everything in the earth ecosystem is connected, what human have done to nature will come back to us someday.
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300 250 200 150 100 50 0
butts & packaging
beverage and takeaway food
FIGURE 5 Litter volume in Victoria 2017/18 (Keep Australia Beautiful 2018)
other glass
other paper
other plastic general other
plastic bags illegal dumping
Keep Australia Beautiful counted Victorian litter volume from 2017-2018. This figure shows beverage and takeaway food litter has the highest volume among all the litter types.
beach
car park
highway
industrial
recreational park
residential
retail
shopping centre
FIGURE 6 Beverage and takeaway food litter volume in different places 2017/18
This figure aims to show which place has the highest beverage and takeaway food litter volume. Highway is the highest one, and followed by car park. The high volume of litter on highway because of car littering while driving. But car park has the high volume of litter is one of the interesting findings.
(Keep Australia Beautiful 2018)
Thus, my research
question about the street litter problem in Melbourne city is:
How to Design the Future waste infrastructure to Help Reduce Street Beverage Litter with the future population growth?
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2 OBSERVATION 2.1 Street litter in Chengdu My hometown Chengdu is one of the mega cities in China with 16 million population(Scspc.gov.cn 2019). The population grew extremely fast after 2010 with an average 1 million increase per year. In 1970, Chengdu had 6.95 million population (Duan 2002). At that time, China just started to recover from Cultural Revolution (Worldpopulationreview.com 2019). The only thing people had to think about is how to survive. Thus, no one cared about environment protection or waste treatment. The most severe observational result is Funan River pollution. Although the main polluting source of Funan River is sewage, litter was also be seen flowing in the river since there was no restriction of littering or illegal dumping back then.
This map shows the urban range of Chengdu in 1989. Chengdu only had the first ring road at that time.
FIGURE 7 Chengdu map 1:15,000 1989 (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency 1989)
Chengdu Government published the policy Chengdu Cityscape and Environmental Sanitation Management Regulations in 1989 and implemented it since 1990 in order to improve the urban environment to attract residents and economy. Because 1990 was a start point of Chengdu city expansion. There was only the first ring road at that time. The Chinese economic reform brought new opportunities to the city and triggered the rapid urban expansion. The government revised the policy in 2009, after the 2008 big earthquake and economy depression to awaken real estate and the economy, and the city scale had expanded to the third ring road ranges. The policy prohibits street littering with penalties and requires street sweeping strictly to keep the streets neat and clean. (Scspc.gov.cn 2019) It’s hard to see street litter in most of the main roads in Chengdu now because of the effort of street sweeping by cleaners and the government’s strong supervise. The government started to explore applying new technology to urban litter bins design as well.
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FIGURE 9 Taikoo Li, Chengdu 2015 (Urbis Limited 2015)
FIGURE 8 Chengdu tourist map 2019 (Travelchinaguide.com 2019)
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This photo was taken in Chengdu Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li which was located in the busiest part of Chengdu. It’s a mix-used retail centre with only pedestrian access built in 2015, just beside Chengdu’s most famous shopping district Chunxi Road. Various shopping and recreation experience attract visitors every day. Even with high pedestrian volume, lanes in Taikoo Li keep clean and beautiful.
The scale of Chengdu has expanded from the first ring road to over the third ring road and will keep expanding in the future to reach the goal of becoming an international mega city. Lots of immigrants are attracted by the temperate climate, tasty food and job opportunities to settle down in recent 10 years.
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However, it’s hard void street litter in some places in this mega city. Street littering still happens in some old districts, small shabby lanes, or tourist spots. For now, the government has settled some litter bins combined with new technologies, especially connecting with smartphones to promote waste classification and non-littering with encouragement.
FIGURE 10 Taikoo Li context, Chengdu Photo taken place
This context map shows the photo taken place and surrounding restaurants/cafe where provide beverages. Marking seat area because litter is easy to emerge in places where people stay.
According to the future plan of Chengdu, new technologies like big data platform and real-time monitoring will be used in street cleaning system for building smart city infrastructure to help reduce street litter and waste generation.
Restaurants/cafe with outdoor seats seat area
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2.2 Street litter in Melbourne
FIGURE 11
Melbourne has 5 million population now(Population.net.au 2019). But in the past Melbourne was known as a polluted city. Industrial waste polluted its water system while residential waste was dumped in small lanes and vacant streets. It even got the name of “smellbourne”. From 1970, with more people moved into the city, the street waste dumping and littering became worse.
Litter trap on Yarra River
The legislation of Litter Act 1964 was triggered by a statewide anti-litter campaign and in 1970, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) was established to prevent pollution rather than just clean up them. A new Litter Act in 1987 restricted individual’s responsibility of disposing of rubbish with new penalties of littering. (Stone 2019)
This photo shows a litter trap full with litter on Yarra River. Most litter inside is plastic bottles. There are hundreds of litter traps along Yarra River for catching flowing litter on the waterway to prevent pollution of river and ocean.
Melbourne (MelbourneMyHomeTown 2013)
Despite the littering problem had been improved after those policies and laws publishment, the littering problem still remained since the increasing number of people living in Melbourne city and general visitors. In the mid-1990s, litter kept polluting Yarra River through drain system and local creeks. Now the situation of street littering might get better than 1990s, but still not good. When I walked through streets in Melbourne city or sitting in Queen Victoria Gardens, it’s hard to ignore the litter on the ground. There were butts, single-use plastic bottles, glass wine bottles, tissues, or coffee cups. You can even see some litter flying in the air when it’s a windy day. The government settled litter traps in Yarra River to collect waste in the water and they are often full of litter.
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FIGURE 12 Litter under restaurants outdoor tables
( Street. The outdoor ! This picture was taken outside a restaurant on Swanston dining seems to be the most usual place for litter emerging. People enjoy their meal here then leave their litter behind.
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On the basis of Litter Hotspot Program, Victoria State Government will collaborate with local councils and communities to build the ability to prevent littering and encourage individuals’ responsibilities of waste management (Victoria State Government 2013). The priorities of litter-relevant issues are the litter in the water system, microplastic in the environment and illegal dumping (Victoria State Government 2016). City of Melbourne calculated there was an average of 3500 tons of litter collected in the city every year. The government will introduce more creative and smart ways to help with waste management and keep the street clean (City of Melbourne 2019). But I do notice that there still lacks specific interventions of reducing street litter rather than a brief plan. With the population projection in 2050, there will be 8.5 million people live in Melbourne (Henriques-Gomes 2018). The ongoing population growth and increasing density will lead to more waste generation in the short future. The crowded streets in Melbourne city don’t have enough capabilities to deal with the litter problem for now, and what about the future?
FIGURE 14 Fulled smart bin Swanston St, Melbourne 16/4/2019
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To reduce street litter, Melbourne city council put about 400 smart bins into the city. The smart bins can detect litter volume inside the bin with sensors and will notify waste facilities to collect litter when the litter amount reaches 70% of the bin’s capacity. Combining city waste infrastructure with new technology is quite a good way to improve the efficiency of urban waste management. However, the problem now is that some smart bins don’t work well. Many of them malfunctioned which cannot indicate the capacity of the bin and usually overflowed.
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2.3 What are the reasons cause street litter? Based on Litter Statistics Fact Sheet 2014 from Victorian Litter Action Alliance, there were only 65% Victorians throw their litter into bins in public spaces (Victorian Litter Action Alliance 2014).
FIGURE 15
3 AGENCY OF SEEING
Reasons of street litter 3.1 Melbourne litter bin design dtandard
lazy/don’t care
missed throw
litter from car window
swept by others or wind from the table
The litter bin design standard, mentioned in the Design and Construction Standards for Public Infrastructure Works in the Docklands Area, has three main requirements about litter bin placing. The first one is that litter bin should be along the road with high pedestrian volume. Second, the litter bin needs to be settled near public seating areas where people would like to sit and enjoy their food or drinks. Third, litter bins are better to be near the retail precincts (City of Melbourne 2013). 3.2 Facts of litter in Victoria As showed in the figures on page 12-13, based on the National Litter Index 20172018 Victoria Results, Beverage containers have the biggest volume of the whole Victorian litter generation. The report counted Victorian litter from different types of site which are residential, beach, industrial, car park, shopping centre, retail strip/shops, recreational park and highway. The highest volume of beverage litter emerged in highway, followed by car park. Highway litter is related to car littering which is hard to be influenced by waste infrastructures design. However, car park litter can be paid more attention to because the litter bin design standard hasn’t mentioned about it. Car parking spaces seem to be a weak part when considering the waste infrastructure design(Keep Australia Beautiful 2018). 3.3 Seeing from the air
some in the bin some littered
litter bin overflow
litter attracts litter
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Data collection and GIS technology gave designers chances to analyse issues from a different angle and in an objective and scientific way. I used GIS as a tool to analyse the litter bins distribution and important elements with influence on the litter generation in Melbourne city. Depending on the Design and Construction Standards for Public Infrastructure Works in the Docklands Area and the National Litter Index 2017-2018 Victoria Results, pedestrian volumes, restaurants/café with outdoor seats, on-street parking bays and public seat areas are key factors that impact the street litter generation. They will decide litter bins’ placement. The number of those pedestrian volumes, restaurants/café with outdoor seats, on-street parking bays and public seat areas are positively correlated with the amount of litter generation. Thus, if I analyse the density of those factors, places with higher density will need more litter bins to cover the litter they generate.
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FIGURE 16
FIGURE 17
Litter bins density
On street parking bay density
database(City of Melbourne open data 2019)
database(City of Melbourne open data 2019)
City of Melbourne boundary
City of Melbourne boundary on street parking bay counts/km2
litter bins counts/m2 0-0.28 0.28-1.565 1.565-2.846 2.846-4.127 4.127-5.408 5.408-6.688 6.688-8.918 8.918-12.096
scale 1:7000
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0-168.921
Public litter bin is the basic waste infrastructure in urban area. The numbers, capabilities and locations of litter bins are important elements that influence the appearance of street litter. There has more chance to find litter in places where has less litter bins.
168.921-523.656
This map shows litter bins distribution density within city of Melbourne. The high density of litter bins is in CBD area.
2516.928-3209.505
523.656-929.067 929.067-1385.155 1385.155-1908.811 1908.811-2516.928
3209.505-4307.494
scale 1:7000
According to National Litter Index 2017-2018 Victoria Results (Keep Australia Beautiful 2018), car park has high volume of beverage litter. Thus, researching the location of car parking will help to identify the litter hotspots. This map presents the on-street parking bay density in the city of Melbourne. High-density areas are gathered in the north boundary of Melbourne CBD. Because lots of people commute to CBD every day and the north side of CBD is broader to provide more parking spaces while within CBD there are less spaces for parking.
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FIGURE 18
FIGURE 19
Restaurants and cafe with outdoor seats density
Public seats density database(City of Melbourne open data 2019)
database(City of Melbourne open data 2019) City of Melbourne boundary restaurants and cafe with outdoor seats low
high
scale 1:7000
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City of Melbourne boundary
Beverages are mainly provided by restaurants and cafe. The generation of beverage litter in Melbourne may be higher than in other Australian cities because of its coffee culture. As observed in Chapter 2, beverage litter easily emerges under the outdoor tables and seats. Thus, the locations of restaurants and cafe with outdoor seats can help to identify litter hotspots. From this map, the high density of restaurants and cafe with outdoor seats showed in the busiest area in Melbourne city.
public seats low
Based on the litter bin desgin standard, litter bins should be placed near public seats or places where people would like to stay. So, the public seats density can also help to identify the litter hotspots. Public seats are usually placed in places with high pedestrian volumes and somewhere people would like to stay like tram/bus stations, open spaces.
high
scale 1:7000
The public seat density map indicates the hotspots of seat areas mainly in the centre of CBD, Southbank, Docklands and Fitzroy garden.
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FIGURE 21 Litter hotspots map
4 5 1 2 3
This map layered high pedestrian volume, public seats density, restaurants and cafe density, and onstreet parking bay density together and showed 5 hotspots where can generate more street litter than other places.
FIGURE 22 Litter bins density in litter hotspots
4 5 1
FIGURE 20 2
Pedestrian volume map database(City of Melbourne open data 2019) City of Melbourne boundary restaurants and cafe outdoor seat high volume low volume
scale 1:7000
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This map shows the litter bins density in litter hotspots which is identified in the map above. Low density of litter bins means high chance of litter appearance. So, these two maps help me to find the point of interest.
Where the higher pedestrian volume, there will be more chance of litter appearance. This pedestiran volume map mainly distinguish streets with high volume and low volume in the city of Melbourne. After analysing the density of public seats, on-street parking bay and restaurants with outdoor seats, I layered those three elements and high pedestrian volume together and incomparison with the litter bins density map to find a hotspot which can show the place where need more litter bins most to prevent street litter. I found the hotspot 1,4 and 5 has lower density of litter bins. Besides, the hotspot 4 has a big range but the density of litter bins is almost the same with other two hotspots. Thus, I deduced the hotspot 4 will need more litter bins to reach the capacity of the litter collection in this area as the population growth.
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FIGURE 23 City of Melbourne satellite map
3.4 Street scale analysis According to the former analysis, I zoomed in to the hotspot 4, which is located on Lygon Street in Carlton.
FIGURE 24 Lygon Street Satellite map
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Lygon Street is located in Carlton, the north of Melbourne CBD. Lygon Street is also beside Carlton Graden. It’s an Italian style street full with Italian restaurants and cafe which attracts lots of visitors. Almost every restaurant and cafe in Lygon Street have outdoor seats. On-street parking bays are placed along the street. Public seats mainly in Argyle Square. Litter bins are mainly settled around the Argyle Square as well.
Argyle Square
FIGURE 25 Lygon Street context map
Lygon Str eet
litter bins
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restaurants and cafe with outdoor seats public seats
on-street parking bay
The context map of Lygon Street aims to show the current situation of the 4 elements which impact beverage litter appearance on this street. The current context will help to define the rationality of existing waste infrastructure in this site and according to the locations of restaurants, cafe, public seats and parking bays to adjustment the future waste infrastructures design.
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WASTE MANAGEMENT AGE
WASTE DUMPING AGE
4
policy / law / guideline
LINEAGE MAP 1347-balck death
3000-1000 B.C
ROMAN EMPIRE
The first recorded waste regulations
The first garbage collection
“Age of sanitation”
Environment Protection Act 1970 regulated waste dumping and litter deposit penalty.
ENVIRONMENT
1970
Water and street pollution by waste dumping made Melbounre become “Smellbounrne”. 1969, Keep Australia Beautiful launched anti-litter movement to call for a clean environment.
Solid waste dumping to ocean was ruled illegal in US
Ocean dumping was condemned strongly
Urban growth of large population
1890S
Modern solid waste management first emerged in US
After 1970, with more people moved into the city, littering became worse. VLAA litter champion helped provide LITTER PREVENTION Program Kit in 2011.
VLAA litter champion launched in 2002 to review Litter Act 1987 in current situation. 1987
1991
2005
2013
Litter Act (VIC)
Litter amendment act (VIC)
Waste management strategy
Victorian litter strategy 2012-14
The Parliament of Victoria
The Parliament of Victoria
City of Melbourne
Sustainability Victoria
Based on Environment Protection Act 1970, Litter Act 1987 refined laws about litter which prohibited litter deposit and provided enforcement of the law.
The amendment added regulation about advertising material delivery, empowered EPA and other general amendment to improve Litter Act 1987.
The strategy provided waste management in the next 15 years to face the future needs.
Victoria plastic bag ban
The challenges of population growth, climate change, high-density community waste collection and recycling crisis in the near future.
War On Waste of ABC
2018
Environment protection amendment act 2018 The Parliament of Victoria
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18th-19th century Industrial revolution
The sanitation problem drove the focus on waste management, then the environmental pollution promote the modern development of waste management.
1933
The Parliament of Victoria
institution
1842
SANITATION
Environment Protection Act (VIC)
trigger / projects
Repealing Environment protection amendment 1970 to introduce general environment duty and give more power to EPA to prevent waste and environment pollution.
Litter Hotspots project was launched to support litter prevention practice and provide data resource.
2017
2016
2015
Waste and resource recovery strategy 2030 (draft)
The metropolitan waste and resource recovery implementation plan
Statewide waste and resource recovery infrastructure plan
City of Melbourne
Metropolitan Waste and Resource Recovery Group
Sustainability Victoria
Applying statewide plan to metropolitan area.
A 30 years waste management and recycling system.
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Lineage reflection Drawing the lineage map helps me to trace the trajectory of waste management development in Victoria. In the first version of lineage map, I traced back to the early history and tried to build a developing line of global waste management as well as the theory succession. But I found it was not easy to build a simple line under the global scale and those theories I found didn’t have an obvious link to laws or guidelines. So, I came up with the second version of the lineage map. In the second version, I mainly focused on waste management in Victoria. The timeline of policy succession helps me to trace the connection among different laws, guidelines and strategies.
FIGURE 26 First version of lineage map In the first version, I found some important time point of waste management and the significant events and documents. I tried to find how the events and former documents influence the later ones. The theories lineage here didn’t make much sense, because there were too many theories and I didn’t find their significant influence.
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FIGURE 27 Second version of lineage map
In the second version, I started to build the link among different events and documents. But it still needs more explanation about why the changes happened at a certain time. If I am clear about the trajectory of waste management, it would help me to predict future change.
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5 Lineage map conclusion
STRATEGY
Based on the lineage map, there usually have a trigger which could be a movement or some change in urban scale, then it promotes a publishment of law, policy or strategy. After the publishment of documents, some practice projects or actions will be taken. The new projects or actions may become the next trigger, or some new changes could be triggers to promote new policies. Looking for the intervene of landscape architecture which related to space design in this process, and I found landscape mainly involved in infrastructure improvement. However, space design in waste management was missing in most of the time. The government focused on regulation and encouragement more and maybe ignore the link between waste and the spatial environment.
5.1 Claim ground
trigger
policy documents
practice/actions
public open space
street
new changes Where landscape architecture involve in? As the missing of space design in the waste management process, I positioned landscape architecture’s involvement in 4 parts in the future waste management: 1. waste infrastructure design Waste infrastructure design is mainly about bins design, waste management facility design, and waste system spatial design. 2. public space design Public space design can introduce the guided landscape to influence people to keep the environment clean from spatial experience. Clean and beautiful environment makes people want to keep it clean. 3. encouraging public engagement Encouraging public engagement through space design. 4. environment education Environment education is also one way of public engagement. The proper signage design and providing open spaces for education activities can be helpful. 42
parking bay FIGURE 28 Claim ground
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5.2 Managing assets
5.3 Precedents
FIGURE 30
1. Green Nudge: Nudging Litter Into The Bin (Jespersen 2015)
Precedents
FIGURE 29
Location: Copenhagen
Managing assets
litter scattered over street
Sometimes, people litter just because they don’t find the nearest bins or they don’t realize that littering is a bad behaviour. Researchers in Copenhagen utilized the footprint labels on the ground with light color to lead people to litter bins. The research outcome proved that these litter changes can help to reduce street littering.
litter bin overflowed 2. self-empty bins (Envac 2019)
litter caused environment degradation
Location: Scandinavia
litter bins not fit current situation
The self-empty bins are connected by pipes underground. When people put their garbage into the bins, garbage will be transported to a center point through underground pipes by air currents. It solves the problem of bins overflow. reduce street litter
3. Binfrastructure (Zero Waste Scotland 2016)
impact to stakeholders Location: Scotland, Copenhagen, China, Melbourne, etc. Many cities introduced smart bins like solar-powered compacting bins which can alarm when bins full and compact automatelly to spare more space, or wifi bins which can attract people. 4. ON-THE-GO RECYCLING PROJECT (Zero Waste Scotland 2012) government Making city environment clean and beautiful will attract visitors and investment.
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community Providing communities a clean and comfortable living environment as well as good for public health.
retail business Attracting people to come can increase business profit.
Location: Scotland This project introduced a recycling machine for recycle coffee cups and plastic bottles with reward system to encourage people recycle their beverage waste which can also help reduce the beverage litter. 45
5.4 Short-term actions (5-10 years) bins location adjustment Short-term actions aims to list multiple methods and test those ideas in the litter hotspots which is Lygon Street in this research to find the best practice and then apply the method to city scale in a long-term actions.
FIGURE 31
increasing number of bins
Infrastructure design in short-term actions 5.4.1 Infrastructure design
wind prevention design
bins novelty design bins capacity adjustment
If bins are overflow which causes litter dropping on the ground, the big wind in Melbourne will bring those litter everywhere. So, it’s neccessary to consider the wind prevention design of bins. bin made by beverage waste
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Since people are more likely to litter in places where already has litter, the behaviour pattern can be utilized to design bins which are made by beverage waste to lead people to throw their litter here.
Bins novelty design will improve the amenity of waste infrastructures.
increasing drinking fountains
Increasing drinking fountains in hotspots of pedestrians will encourage people to reduce the consumption of beverage which contributes to the reduction of plastic bottles.
parking bays
standard litter bin (80 litre)
restaurants and cafe with outdoor seats
smart bin (560 litre)
relocate litter bin
Because of the influence of restaurants/cafe, parking bay and public seats, the shortterm actions can test adjustment of bins location, numbers and capacity along Lygon Street. Bins should near restaurants and cafe, and increase numbers or capacity of bins properly based on the bins collection data from the City of Melbourne (Melbourne.vic. gov.au 2019). For example, there are 27.5 times litter collections from standard litter bins. Every litter bin has 80 litre capacity. Thus, the existing 6 litter bins along the west side of Lygon Street will generate 13200 litre litter per week. With the projection of population growth, I assumed there would be 26400 litre litter every week in Lygon Street in 2050. So, there will need at least 10 standard litter bins along the west side of Lygon Street then. If change the standard litter bins into Big Belly smart bins which has been used in some places in Melbourne CBD. The smart bin has 560 litre capacity. There will only need 2 smart bins in Lygon Street in 2050. However, considering the littering behaviour, it is necessary to put some standard litter bins to keep a short distance between each bin.
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5.4.2 Public space design
5.4.3 Encouraging public engagement bins novelty design
creative guiding pavement design
recycle and reward system
surveilliance system get reward of coupon
beverage recycle
Encouraging communities join the novelty bins design, so, they will have the willing to protect the environment surrouding.
Inspired by Scotland’s On-the Go Recycling project, the recycling and reward system can also be introduced to Melbourne to promote people recycle their beverage waste for rewards.
retail engagement
public surveilliance
maintenance DO NOT LITTER
report litter report overflow
Encouraging retail shops and beverage companies design the warning and education signage with their brands. It combines fund and profit together.
FIGURE 33 Public engagement in short-term actions
FIGURE 32 Public space design in short-term actions
5.4.4 Environment education FIGURE 34 Environment education in short-term actions educational signage design provide open space for educational activities
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5.5 Long-term actions (2030-2050) Future challenges of Melbourne: 1. population growth 2. Urban high-density 3. Climate change 4. waste collection amenity 5. recycling crisis Based on the analysis, there are two main methods for waste infrastructure design to reduce the street beverage litter in facing the future challenges. First is according to the short-term test actions, applying the best practice in the short-term test in Lygon Street or combine multiple actions together.
beverage litter recycling litter general litter
The alternative way is utilizing the self-empty bin system in the precedents to build underground waste collection system which is clean, convenient and with low maintenance. It perfectly solved the bin overflow problem, avoid garbage tracks in the city and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s flexible with population growth and high-density changes.
FIGURE 35 Underground waste collection system in Lygon Street
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waste management centre
People throw litter into bins, then litter through bins into underground pipes and stored in pipes just under the bins for a while. When the bins are almost full, all the litters stored underground will be transported to the waste management centre directly by air flows. Bins will be cleaned separately in order to avoid mixture and collision.
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REFERENCES
Zero Waste Scotland 2012, ‘Recycle on the go, A guide for organisations managing or implementing recycle on the go infrastructure’, Zero Waste Scotland. 53
First published in 2019.
55 pages, 35 illustrations Published in Melbourne, Australia Master of Landscape Architecture School of Architecture and Urban Design Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
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