Recycling — Case Study & UI Design

Basics

Recycling is the process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning them into new products. Recycling can benefit your community and the environment. Recycling is one of the best ways for you to have a positive impact on the world in which we live. Recycling is important to both the natural environment and us. We must act fast as the amount of waste we create is increasing all the time.

The amount of rubbish we create is constantly increasing because:

1. Increasing wealth means that people are buying more products and ultimately creating more waste.
2. Increasing population means that there are more people on the planet to create waste.
3. New packaging and technological products are being developed, much of these products contain materials that are not biodegradable.
4. New lifestyle changes, such as eating fast food, means that we create additional waste that isn’t biodegradable.

Environmental Importance

Recycling is very important as waste has a huge negative impact on the natural environment.

Harmful chemicals and greenhouse gasses are released from rubbish in landfill sites. Recycling helps to reduce the pollution caused by waste.

Habitat destruction and global warming are some the affects caused by deforestation. Recycling reduces the need for raw materials so that the rainforests can be preserved.

Huge amounts of energy are used when making products from raw materials. Recycling requires much less energy and therefore helps to preserve natural resources.

Importance To People

Recycling is essential to cities around the world and to the people living in them.

Reduce financial expenditure in the economy. Making products from raw materials costs much more than if they were made from recycled products.

Preserve natural resources for future generations. Recycling reduces the need for raw materials; it also uses less energy, therefore preserving natural resources for the future.

Benefits of Recycling

1. Reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators
2. Conserves natural resources such as timber, water and minerals
3. Increases economic security by tapping a domestic source of materials
4. Prevents pollution by reducing the need to collect new raw materials
5. Saves energy
6. Supports manufacturing and conserves valuable resources
7. Helps create jobs in the recycling and manufacturing industries

By reducing your waste and recycling as much as possible, you will be helping to reduce the production of ash and saving the world’s precious resources.

Recycling saves resources
When we recycle, used materials are converted into new products, reducing the need to consume natural resources. If used materials are not recycled, new products are made by extracting fresh, raw materials from the earth, through mining and forestry. Recycling helps conserve important raw materials and protects natural habitats for the future.

Recycling saves energy
Using recycled materials in the manufacturing process uses considerably less energy than that required for producing new products from raw materials — even when comparing all associated costs including transport etc. There are also extra energy savings because more energy is required to extract, refine, transport and process raw materials ready for industry, compared with providing industry-ready materials.

Recycling helps protect the environment
Recycling reduces the need for extracting (mining, quarrying and logging), refining and processing raw materials. All of these create substantial air and water pollution. As recycling saves energy it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which helps to tackle climate change.

Recycling reduces incineration
When we recycle, recyclable materials are reprocessed into new products, and as a result the amount of rubbish sent for incineration reduces.

Steps to Recycling Materials

Recycling includes the three steps below, which create a continuous loop, represented by the familiar recycling symbol.

Step 1: Collection and Processing

There are several methods for collecting recyclables, including curbside collection, drop-off centers, and deposit or refund programs.

After collection, recyclables are sent to a recovery facility to be sorted, cleaned and processed into materials that can be used in manufacturing. Recyclables are bought and sold just like raw materials would be, and prices go up and down depending on supply and demand in the world.

Step 2: Manufacturing

More and more of today’s products are being manufactured with recycled content. Common household items that contain recycled materials include the following:

Newspapers and paper towels

Aluminum, plastic, and glass soft drink containers

Steel cans

Plastic laundry detergent bottles

Recycled materials are also used in new ways such as recovered glass in asphalt to pave roads or recovered plastic in carpeting and park benches.

Step 3: Purchasing New Products Made from Recycled Materials

You help close the recycling loop by buying new products made from recycled materials. There are thousands of products that contain recycled content. When you go shopping, look for the following:

Products that can be easily recycled

Products that contain recycled content

Some of the common products you can find that can be made with recycled content include the following: Aluminum cans, Car bumpers, Carpeting, Cereal boxes, Comic books, Egg cartons, Glass containers, Laundry detergent bottles, Motor oil, Nails, Newspapers, Paper towels, Steel products, Trash bags.

What is Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Recycling?

There are three types of recycling, known as primary, secondary and tertiary. Primary recycling means that the recyclable material/product is recovered and reused without being changed in any way and usually for the very same purpose. Secondary recycling means that the material/product is reused in some other way without reprocessing, while tertiary recycling refers to a process that involves chemical altering of the material/product in order to make it reusable. Examples of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Recycling:

Primary:
In order for the material/product to be classified as primary recycled, it mustn’t be changed in any way. In a way, primary recycling can be defined as secondhand use — reusing yourself, donating to a friend, family member or charity organisation, or/and selling, for example at an online auction.

Secondary:
This type of recycling involves some sort of modification of the material/product without the use of chemical processes. Examples include cutting the eggbox in half to use it as a seed starter, cutting the upper half of a plastic bottle to use it as plant pot, cutting and reshaping various waste products to make arts and crafts, cutting envelopes into smaller pieces to use them as scrap paper, etc.

Tertiary:
If a material/product has been tertiary recycled it means it has been reprocessed either by a chemical process or heat. Examples include melting metals, chemically treating old paper and breaking down plastic bottles in order to make brand new products. Tertiary recycling can be external or internal. If it’s external, it means that the recycled materials/products were recovered and reprocessed thanks to public participation — sorting waste and putting it in recycling bins to be collected and transferred to reprocessing facilities. Internal recycling means that the materials/products were recovered without public participation, for example within factories and manufacturing facilities.

Recycling is not free

In many cases we have trained the public to believe that recycling is free by
how we have set-up billing for waste collection services. However, revenue from the sale of recyclables typically does not offset the costs of collecting, sorting and processing the recyclable materials.

1. There are domestic facilities that will provide secondary sorting to clean up materials so they are acceptable for sale to markets but there is a cost associated with secondary sorting, which exceeds the cost to export to Southeast Asia.
2. Haulers/MRFs are asking for waivers to landfill and/or surcharges to pay for additional sorting/processing costs.
3. Disposal of recyclables uses landfill capacity and may erode the public trust in recycling.

Recycling is the process of converting used products into raw materials that can be used again for a variety of purposes. The benefits of recycling include conservation of natural resources, reduction in energy usage, reduction in land and soil pollution as well as water pollution. At times recycling of used material means re-production of the same material, such as paper. However, this is often an expensive and tedious process. Thus you will find that notebooks containing recycled paper are priced higher in order to recoup the losses.
Many a times, paper is used to produce different types of materials such as, cardboard. Various types of materials can be recycled including: aggregates and concretes, batteries, clothing, electronic wastes, ferrous materials (including old cars) glass, paint, paper, plastic and wood.

Legislation involved in maintaining a recycling programme has been set up in almost all the developed nations of the world. Three popular legislative options include: mandatory recycling collection, container deposit legislation and refuse bins.

Mandatory Recycling Collection: This means that recycling is enforced by law. It sets recycling targets for cities, which must be met by a certain time frame.
Container Deposit Legislation: This type of legislation is common to India as well. Upon return of plastic containers, glass bottles or metal containers to the retailer, some money can be re-claimed. This programme has had a high success rate.
Refuse Bins: It involves setting up of Green Bins in various areas where organic waste is collected and composted.

The European Union, the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia have stringent laws on recycling and a well-structured recycling programme. Let us consider the recycling culture in India.

Indians have a small carbon footprint. Non-biodegradable waste in large Indian cities is in the range of 50–100 gm per capita per day as compared to 1–2 kg in the West. Waste management in rural areas is much more efficient than urban areas. Practices like composting wastes to make manure, using cow-dung for fuel and straw to re-inforce huts and hatchments have contributed to keeping rural India pollution free.

However, the urban landscape has been deteriorating over the years. With the introduction of plastic wastes, e-wastes and other non biodegradable materials composting is no longer an option. The perils of plastic are manifold. Paper thin plastic bags are ubiquitous, blighting scenic beauty and clogging drains. Animals feeding in dumpsters often eat plastic bags by mistake and die of suffocation and indigestion. Dumps of dry recyclable waste rot away on huge land-fills in urban areas, wasting space and essentially making the land barren. Un-recycled batteries start to leach chemicals over a period of time which seep into the soil, often making it poisonous.

The problem is with dry waste management, as opposed to wet which consists mostly of biodegradables. Dry waste, which includes plastic, metal and e-waste is left in the hands of the informal sector. It is neither taxed nor monitored by the government. The informal sector handles 10–15 per cent of urban wastes and employs millions of underpaid workers in a marginalized business.

There is no way for the common people to access recycling facilities with ease. One has make efforts to become environmentally conscious.

The Municipal Solid Wastes Rules of 1999 gave recognition to recycling and directed municipalities to promote the process. However, there is lack of sophisticated recycling equipment in the Indian system, because of loopholes in the laws.

Developed nations, fearing stringent laws in home countries often dump their waste like plastic bottles, cans and packs, etc., in India because of looser laws. Thus our country, which does not have the capability of even recycling its own waste, becomes a dumping ground for others.

The Indian Government needs to take responsibility for waste management and recycling. It’s a sector that would benefit greatly from public administration and creation of legitimate jobs with minimum wages. The social set-up and public attitude is such that domestic waste collectors are often looked down upon and belittled. A government approved job, with higher salary, monitoring and taxation can go a long way in changing that. India can take a page or two out of the legislations in the United Sates and EU countries. Once a Recycling Department is set up centrally, it can facilitate the creation of public-accessible recycling centers. California’s deposit-return systems, or Mexico’s requirement that 50 per cent of Coca Cola be sold in re-usable bottles, are good examples of legislation. Corporates can use marketing strategies such as lotteries, or something similar to Nokia’s old-phone recycling system.

Finally, public awareness is an important tool. Students should not just be lectured about recycling, but also taught how to practice it. Many public schools in New York have recycling dispensers for paper, cans and bottles. The presence of these in school and college campuses, and even workplaces can greatly reduce the go-to costs.
Awareness is the first step to action. Recycling is an important environment-friendly concept that needs to come out of the closet and be talked about, written and discussed.

What Happens If We Don’t Recycle?

• Increase in pollution

The first consequence from not recycling would be pollution. There are many different kinds of pollution. For example, the Styrofoam which carries water or coffee pollutes the ground by leaking nasty chemicals into the soil. If enough of these chemicals build-up, this can cause cancer. The air also gets polluted each time you drive your car. Plastic particles from water bottles and chemicals pollute our water — that’s why you should always recycle them.

• Overflow of landfills

Landfills are designed to deal with waster. However, if we threw everything away when it could be recycled, the landfill would fill up and would be unable to cope with this large load. It would also create unpleasant smells and end up being toxic from all the harmful chemicals which arise from the Styrofoam, batteries, microwaves, cleaning supplies and other household products. Making little recycling efforts helps substantially in keeping landfill sites under control.

• Destruction of natural habitats

When we don’t recycle, reuse and reduce, we destroy natural habitats. As it is, our earth cannot cope with the current rate of destruction. By failing to reuse what we already have, we’ll end up in a sticky situation of running out of resources. Luckily, recycling is easy. There are lots of things you can recycle, such as soft drink cans and scrap metal.

Is what we’re recycling actually getting recycled?

At first, people had to separate their recycling. Plastics went in one bin, glass in another, paper in a third. But with the introduction of single-stream collection, people can put all of their recyclables in one place.But this change to single-stream collection is the result of a change in technology. Better equipment was developed that sorts through our recyclables for us. Magnets and electric currents separate different metals, while infrared lasers sort different kinds of paper and plastic containers from one another, based on the light wavelength each type of material emits.Recyclables are considered a commodity — a good that can be sold. Those cans, bottles and boxes you recycle can be broken down into raw materials again and sold to manufacturers. And since consumers like products made from recycled materials, manufacturers buy more recycled materials for their products. This means the prices for these commodities increases, which means recycling programs remain feasible. So recyclables are valuable. Trash, on the other hand, is not. In fact, waste companies are generally charged fees for the right to dump their waste collections at landfills. And really the only difference between trash and recyclables is what happens after they’re picked up. So ultimately, it would be a terrible business model for a waste management company to pick up your recyclables and simply dump them in a landfill. This is not to say that everything you put in your recycling bin actually does get recycled. And there have been some very high-profile cases of recycling fraud.

Will Recycling Make A Difference?

If you’re asked on the street whether or not you recycle, your answer will probably be a very insulted “yes!” We all know we ALWAYS throw away bottles in plastic-only cans, and cans in aluminum cans, right? We definitely recycle and are constantly and consciously trying to reduce waste. If my next question is “does recycling make a difference?” your answer will probably be “YES!” However, how convinced are you that recycling makes a difference? How much of a difference does it actually make to recycle instead of throwing everything in trash cans if any? What is the actual benefit of recycling? For example, most people are not aware that their recycled aerosol cans could find new life as a mobile phone or that recycling materials can actually save energy! And even though most people recognize that by recycling items get a second life as a new product or that recycled products are cheaper, many still are not entirely aware of the benefits of recycling. We live in an era in which as football shirts or even yarn, aerosol cans can be raw material to create new mobile phones, where recycled shampoo bottles could come back as children’s playsets!

Implementing crazy 8’s

Implementing crazy 8’s into my ideation process allowed me to get all of my ideas onto paper both good and bad. Then, creating a Flow Diagram of the steps which takes to recycle revealed how the load on the user is heavier when recycling an item vs. just throwing it away in the trash.

Flow Diagram

To view the UI Design of the mobile app, check my Behance project!

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