The design of a sustainable, hygienic and low-effort bin to collect and store organic waste in high-rise buildings

Abstract

The assignment is commissioned by BinBang, a company with the mission to save as much waste as possible from the incinerator. BigBang’s focus is on improving the waste separation approach of municipalities, consumers and companies, through their products, and basically by coaching the citizens.

In high rise areas (HRAs) in the Netherlands, organic waste (OW) is hardly separated. Clean and separate collection of OW at the source contributes to a circular economy (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2018). Also, the EU has composed a new law which states that all OW must be recycled or separately collected at its source in 2023 (CounsilEU, 2018). Hence, municipalities with HRAs are more problematic.

The municipality of the Hague is used as a case study for this research. 60% of the Hague’s inhabitants live in apartments (Onroerend Zaken Bestand, 2018). The average person in the municipality of the Hague separately collected 10.6 kg OW per year, compared to the national average of 79.8 kg per person per year. (CBS5, 2018). To reach the target of separating 75% of all waste by 2020, as set by the Dutch government (Rijksoverheid, 2018), a solution needs to be found to separate OW in HRAs. This was the starting point for this thesis’ assignment: ‘’How can the apartment inhabitant be supported in separately collecting OW by means of a product or service? ’’

The method of approach to the problem in this thesis is based on the basic design cycle (Boeijen et al. 2014). This method proposes the trial-and-error process of design consisting of analysis, synthesis, embodiment and evaluation. Design thinking is used to work towards a final solution which is desirable, feasible and viable. (DAM & SIANG, 2018)

Analysis Phase | Research to OW in High-rise area’s
To get a representative view of the behaviour and environment of the apartment inhabitants (AI) in HRAs, a variety of AI, among which are students, a young couple, a family and young professionals, in different types of apartments is researched.
AIs have to bring their waste to public containers, in or around the high-rise buildings, which are located in the basement, ground floor and in the hallway.
AIs are generally classified into two groups. They are: separators of OW and non-separators of OW.


The main reasons why AIs do not separate OW are : Lack of public containers, high separation efforts
Lack of space and time to separate, lack of awareness about separating OW. AIs do not see the need to separate OW and have no idea what belongs to OW.

Moreover, the main annoyances for AI who separate OW are: OW is perceived as unhygienic, this includes: dirt
leaking trash bags, odour, fruit flies. Separating OW is perceived as high-effort due to: the walking distance to the public container and the walking frequency to the public container for hygienic reasons.

In a stakeholder analysis, it is observed that 10% of the OW is polluted with other waste fractions, which is a problem for OW processors (Femke Mckinzie, 2018)
Furthermore, municipalities seek for Municipalities are seeking solutions to increase waste separation in an effective and an economical way. (Langeveld, 2014)

Analysis Phase | Business Analysis
To explore viable business opportunities for BinBang regarding the separation of OW in HRAs, internal and external analyses of BinBang were performed, which resulted in a SWOT analysis.
The strengths of BinBang are marketing, branding, communication, their collaborations with municipalities and their proven track record of changing the separation behaviour of people.
Their weakness is their current product portfolio. The products of BinBang do not offer a solution for the main annoyances of AI who separate OW.
The SWOT analysis resulted in seven promising search areas. Meanwhile, the selected search area is: extend the product portfolio with a bin to increase OW separation.

Based on this search area and insights from the analysis, the following design challenge is formulated:

‘‘The design of a bin for the collection and storage of organic waste in high-rise building kitchens and for the transportation of this to a public container.
The product is hygienic, low-effort and sustainable’’

A hygienic product has an acceptable odour level and does not allow visual or physical contact between the user and degraded OW. Conversely, a low effort product is defined by the disposal frequency of OW into a public container, which should be equal or less than the disposal of residual waste. A sustainable product is defined as having a minimum lifetime of 10 years, is repairable and recyclable.

Synthesis phase
in a creative session with industrial design students, several ideas were generated for hygienic and low-effort bins. These ideas are combined with literature research about odour reduction methods, which resulted into the following four concepts:

Organic air bin | This bin uses a double-layered bag system to stimulate aerobic digestion in combination with activated carbon to reduce odour.
Bio balcony bin | This bin consists of a top bin for the kitchen counter to collect OW. The top bin can be placed on the bottom bin, which can as well be placed on the balcony to avoid filling the house with odour.
Waste cube | This bin makes an airtight biodegradable package of the daily produced OW. The cubes can be collected over a period of multiple days and brought together with the RW to the public containers.
Cool waste bin |This bin cools OW in the fridge to reduce odour. Because of a lipo- and a hydrophobic nanocoating, there is no need for a plastic bag. The bin can be cleaned by pouring a bit of water in the bin, closing it off watertight and shaking it.
To validate whether the different concepts resulted in the preferred odour reduction, four prototypes were created. These prototypes were each independently tested for one week by the AI households in a four weeks during research during hot summer days in August and September (KNMI, 2018). Cooling is selected as the odour reduction method for the final product because it resulted in not any odour, compared to the other reduce methods of the other concepts, which did result in odour annoyance.
Apart from the odour reduction method validation, the research also generated new insights about product preferences. Based on these insights and cooling as the odour reduction method, the criterea for the final product are set.
The most important one is that the product should be placeable in the fridge door during storage and by using at the kitchen counter (because of the lack of space on top) Quick disposal of OW, when the bin is placed in the fridge should be possible. The parts must be demountable for cleaning. The preferred bag type is a normal trash bag which should be biodegradable and non-leaking.

Embodiment Phase
The Frisbox is developed as a solution to OW separation in HRAs. The Frisbox is the first bin to collect OW for several days (low-effort) without odour and fruit flies, done by placing the bin in the fridge (hygienic).
The Frisbox comes with the complementary Friszak, a biodegradable bag, which is non leaking, hygienic in usage and perfectly fits into the Frisbox.
BinBang can introduce the Frisbox to the market by means of a pilot, in collaboration with a municipality, such as the city of the Hague. The pilot can be used to validate the effectiveness and develop the properties of the Frisbox. For the pilot, a version of the Frisbox has been designed with low investment costs.

Evaluation Phase
The Frisbox is evaluated by five AIs households by using the pilot Frisbox for the period of a week, to test if the product fulfils the design challenge. From this evaluation, it can be concluded that the pilot Frisboxes were evaluated positively by the AI and are:
Hygienic (No odour annoyance, no fruit flies, no leaking bags, no visual and physical contact between the user and degraded OW)
Low-effort. (Only empty one time a week in public container)
Sustainable (The product is repairable and recyclable).

The importance of a perfect fit bag like the Friszak is more preferred and supported because of the negative results of too large bags used in the test. The Friszak is a solution for waste processors because it could reduce pollution in OW. The Frisbox is an opportunity for BinBang to change the behaviour of AI in the separate collection of OW in HRAs and to reach the Dutch and European waste separation targets.