Without the waste. Reimagining the mentality of waste
This project was done as part of my Master’s program in Innovation & Service Design at Glasgow School of Art with my group mates Ann Mathew, Junqiuo, Shizhe, Fier, and Yueying. And also in support of my professors Jonathan Baldwin, Iain Reid, and Mafalda Moreira. Reduce the amount of medical waste generated and looking at ways to make the system circular. Art
Problem context.
The Goal How might we use circular economy principles to rethink the storage, delivery and dispensing of medical products to reduce the amount of waste generated?
Without the waste | Glasgow School of
The Brief The Context
Double daimond approach
Our Approach.
We used a double diamond approach to explore the challenges and impacts created in medical products due to current method delivery, storage and dispensing. Medicalwastes Expand ConvergeExpand Converge Without the waste | Glasgow School of Art
studies Looking at participants ideas Defining areas to ideate Ideating ways to prototype
HMWProductThematicInterviews research analysis lifecycle
IterationTesting Quick&PrototypeTestprototyping plans
Without the waste | Glasgow School of Art
ExploringIdeationcase
userAnalysis StreetDeskwasteExploringProcess.medical&impactsresearch enquries journey Understanding of used disposable mask Desk
MostlyPackagingtablets & capsules medication are delivered in blister packs which was the most efficient & cheapest way. The blister packages are hard to recycle which accumalates lots of waste.
Exploring medical waste & impacts
Disposable masks Expired Disposablemedicinesmasksarea
new addition to the medical waste and due to the pandemic it has increased its use & no proper disposal system exist. Globally we are using 129 billion face masks and 65 billion plastic gloves every month due the pandemic COVID 19. It takes 450 years to break down as it made of poly Medicinespropylene.are over prescribed by doctors and patients not able to complete the course which in turn get expired and goes to waste. To understand the medical waste out there we created a mind map of our understanding medical waste. This approach us few angles to explore medical products and how wastes are generated and its impact on the ecology. The key findings from the research were,
Without the waste | Glasgow School of Art
To understand the perception of people in Glasgow on medical waste we conducted an engagement by making use of a probe. The idea of creating a probe was to communicate the context and problem easily. We also connected with few doctors from India and china to understand how it is delt in healthcare. And to get an idea on how medical wastes can be recycled we connected with a recycling firm called Terracylce.
Without the waste | Glasgow School of Art
Exploring medical waste & impacts.
In the healthcare system there are proper ways to handle hazardous and non hazardous medical wastes. Most of the wastes are hazardous so it can’t be recycled & it goes pre treatment & incineration. Most of the people dispose all types of medical waste in the general bins & few takes to pharmacy(Not in the case disposable masks)
Wastes which are not hazardous is considered as offensive waste. These can be disposable masks used outside of healthcare industry which can be recycled.
Key findings
Key Insight. Without the waste | Glasgow School of Art
By analysing key findings from the research we were able understand that disposable masks are clinical(healthcare) products where there are defined guidelines for proper handling after use. And when the pandemic hit these clinical products used by all people outside clinical space but without any proper guidelines for disposal and a disposal system. Expired medicine were also other problem which lead to polluting the ecology which also had strong argument. But mostly these are incinerated after its use made hard to contribute back to economy. In the case blister packs we found the opportunity was more on material redesign. This intervensions made us choose the direction of disposable over others. This led us to explore more understanding the situation people dealing with disposable masks...
User journey mapping. the waste Glasgow School of Art
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To understand the current situation more clearly for the team we mapped out the user journey of a person using a disposable masks. The user journey have stages of before using a mask, while using a mask and after using the mask. This gaves us idea of amount of information we know from our research and what more we need to enquire.
Without
Interview
Concequence image scenes
Inteview guide
WithoutInterviews.thewaste|GlasgowSchool of Art
As a next level of enquiry we conducted interviews with few people from Glasgow who uses disposable masks. The aim was to understand the current situation going on and uncover issues which we have’nt explored yet. As a probe we ideated lot of stuff but finally we came to the thought that the probe can the mask which used by the person itself which would be better than showing a new one. We also made use of the concequence picture to understand people’s feeling on the issue.
People buy disposable as thier cheaper and cleaner. Also most of the changes everyday which can create huge amount waste
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“I prefer disposable masks over cloth because its more cleaner”
Key findings. Without the waste Glasgow School of Art
“I feel ashamed of myself!”(Seeing the concequnces)
“Usuallyeveryday”I dispose the masks in the general bins my home”
People are not aware on how to deal with it after use.
Seeing the concequnce people felt bad. They care about the impact on the environment and love contribute to make change. But they also feel an action from person is not going to make any changes & change need to come from the companies.
Everyone disposes the used masks in the general bins which in turn reach the landfills.
“I buy a mask pack of 10 from poundland, its cheaper. I changes them
Without
After understanding the current journey on how people use masks we tried to understand how this journey will look in the context of the complete product cycle. We visualised the complete product cycle of a disposable mask from cradle to grave. The visualisation helped us to identify on which part of the system we can apply the principles of circular economy and the opportunite to ideate.
Product life cycle. the waste School of Art
| Glasgow
By analyising the product life cycle and the key findings from the interview we could identify that the lack of awareness or lack of a proper disposal system is making people to dispose the disposable masks in general bins. This can find its way to landfills and ocean in turn affecting the ecology. We can also see that by creating awareness amoung people & providing them with proper disposal system can make the used masks avaiable for recycling which turn can make the system circular. How might we create awareness on the consquences of improper disposal of disposable masks & guide to proper disposal among people? How might we create a proper disposal system which can make the system circular?
Key insight & HMW. Without the waste | Glasgow School of Art
For ideating concepts we explored circular economy case studies in different industries and also looked participants inputs on tackling the issue.
TheThe other interesting bit we found was Coco-cola company’s reverse vending machine to take back the plastic bottles and cans so they can be recycled and brought back to the economy. I found this more interesting since they used a machine instead of waste basket which would have done the same job. With machine like this changes the way we looked at a used plastic bottle from just waste to something valuable to the economy.
Creating awareness & guiding
WithoutIdeation.thewaste|Glasgow
School of Art
The interesting findings from a interview led us to idea for creating awareness. A participant mentioned about the awareness image on a cigrette pack is making him aware of the impact of smoking. But on mask box it is not showing anything on its impact on after disposal. This also made us thinking there is no such awareness or guidelines for most of the products on how to deal with it after use.
Disposal system
Service journey. Without the waste | Glasgow School of Art
pasted on a disposable mask pack. The leaflet shows some real images of concequences of current way of disposal of masks. It also shows the way to properly dispose a mask. The design asks people to collect used masks in a bag and find the collection point with the help of a map that can accessed through the QR code and contribute back to the economy instead of disposing.
WeWithoutPrototyping.thewaste|GlasgowSchoolofArtprototypedaleafletthatcanbe
WeWithoutPrototyping.thewaste|GlasgowSchoolofArtvisualisedhowareversevending machine would look like so that we can get feedback on people’s opinion on this kind of system.
School
Without the
Testing prototype. waste Glasgow of Art
We conducted a workshop at a student accomodation launch. The participants were mostly students & few proffesionals. The goal of the workshop was to get feedback on the circular system we designed. The workshop had board to show the quick info on what the project is about and another board to provide feedback. When people approached we provided them with mask pack with leaflet attached on it and asked whether this kind system will motivate them to contribute back the used masks. We also tried to understand people’s opinion on incentives.
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The instruction for proper disposal need to be more Peopleclear were worried about the a ialablity of collection points in accessible areas People want it to be scaled for more products.
People didn’t much cared about the idea of incenti e as far as they know the action is making an impact in a good way
Testing results & future plans.
Without the waste | Glasgow School of Art
Findings
Future plans
Introduce a feedbacking system where we can communicate the impact of their action to the Iteratingworld the way instructions are shown and make it more clear Scale the re erse ending machine for taking back more medical products after use.
Showing real concequences made people more care for the en ironmental impacts
Without
Findinginsights.an opportunity for innovation by Engagingresearch. with participants. Encouraging the team with probes to think to develop the project. Critiquing ideas and thoughts.
Analysing & making sense of data to derive
Reflections. Learnings. the waste Glasgow School of Art
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In nature, there is no concept of waste. Everything is food for something else. For most product in the world we have instructions on how to use it but no instruction to deal with it after use. We need to define guidelines when these products are designed. So Why don't we also stop using the concept of waste and start contributing back to the economy by finding opportunities for creating values out of waste.
End. Without the waste | Glasgow School of Art