Promoting Recycling Efforts Beyond Planet Ark’s National Recycling Week

Creating Easy Accessibility to Recycling Information and Guidelines


Overview

Planet Ark is an Australian not-for-profit organisation that helps individuals, communities, governments and businesses reduce their impact on the environment. Their mission is to unite people through positive environmental change

What’s the problem? 

Since 1996 Planet Ark has held a National Recycling Week campaign each year to educate Australians on the importance of recycling and encourage them to recycle responsibily. However, Planet Ark wants to understand the major challenges people face when recycling and how they can engage the public to improve their habits beyond one week.


How can we help? 

Our goal was to discover what factors prevented people from recycling and create a solution to help users overcome these issues to improve their overall recycling behaviours.

Team

Issey Webb
Eric Lieu
Robert Moyses

Duration

Two weeks

My Role

UX/UI designer
UX researcher

Methods

Business analysis
User interviews
Affinity mapping
Empathy mapping
Competitive analysis Comparative analysis
User flow
Action priority matrix
Sketching
Wire-framing
Prototyping
Usability testing

Tools

Figma
FigJam
Pencil and paper

Recycling is confusing…

We found some of the primary problems people faced when trying to recycle was knowing what can be recycled and where it can be recycled.

Ultimately, people want to recycle, but it all boils down to convenience.

What if users could fulfil all their recycling needs in one place?


Our solution is to create a Planet Ark mobile app where users can search for disposal information and find education on recycling codes and labels on the go. This app offers numerous purposes, including council-specific guidelines, so users will no longer have to visit separate sites to find that information.

Knowing the recycling rules isn’t so simple

To begin our research, we conducted user interviews with 9 participants. We wanted to determine:

  • The current recycling habits people possess

  • If their recycling habits differed between their home, workplace and public spaces

  • What issues did they face when trying to recycle, and how may this prevent them from recycling

  • What resources did they use when looking for education on recycling

What did we discover?

66% of our interviewees said the most significant challenge they faced when recycling was not knowing what could be recycled

There were many different issues surrounding the confusion of what can be recycled. For example, understanding recycling labels and information on recycling bins, as well as retaining information between councils.

Secondary research showed that 38% of people need clarification on recycling, and 44% believe it is difficult to find recycling instructions.

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE

Introducing our initial target:

The Casual Eco-Conscious Person

Characteristics:

  • Has a moderate level of environmental awareness and concern

  • They make occasional attempts at being environmentally friendly but lack a strict dedication to eco-friendly practices

  • Their choices often prioritise convenience and personal preferences over eco-friendliness.

We identified this archetype as our target, based off our discoveries during user interviews. We found that those who already possessed some degree of environmental practices were more likely to seek out education on recycling and would be motivated to download an app if it resulted in a positive impact.

The inspiration

Recycle Mate App

What do they offer?

  • Find recycling information easily by capturing a photo of your recyclable item or by searching the item name

  • Customize your profile by adding your location and the type of bins you have access to at home

  • See results for nearby recycling facilities, with the option to search for directions within an external map app

But what’s missing?

After looking at both apps we found that the one thing they lacked was council-specific information. Based on our interviews, we knew one of the biggest challenges for people was knowing what can be recycled. Due to rules varying from council to council, we believed it was crucial to include council-specific information to help people recycle with ease.

Recycle Smart App

What do they offer?

  • Well-categorised and easy-to-find recycling information

  • Arrange and pay for a pick-up service for recyclable materials

Utilising Planet Ark’s existing resources

Planet Ark has already established a ‘Recycling Near You’ service. This service allows users to search materials and locations to find a drop-off point or pick-up service to dispose of recyclables appropriately. During our research, we also found this service has the most extensive list of recycling facilities in comparison to other apps. We wanted to maximise their existing resources and make them more easily accessible to the public.

Combining the need for council-specific information, the Recycling Near You service and the knowledge that people’s recycling habits are inconsistent within each area of their lives, we created the Planet Ark mobile app.

Due to the time constraints, we didn’t have a considerable amount of time to receive feedback from our initial sketches, however, we were able to gather some insights to iterate on our design layout before creating wireframes.

Home Page

Nearby Bin Finder

Disposal Information

The result

Location of nearest recycling bins
Users can utilise the map function to locate recycling bins near them. They can simply enable location services or enter their current location. This function ensures users can find a recycling bin on the go, even if they are unfamiliar with the area.

Recycling Near You
Users can use the search function on the home page or navigate to the disposal screen to find disposal information for larger and atypical recycling items. Using the information already provided by Planet Ark, we redesigned this service for the mobile app in a simple and easy-to-digest layout.

Council information
By entering their postcode, users can access disposal information and recycling codes based on their council. In addition, they can view the upcoming bin collection day from the home page to assist with organisation.

So what’s next?

  1. As we were operating based on the assumption that Planet Ark could retrieve and regularly update council-specific information we would need to confirm this to be true. Similarly, we would need to understand the restrictions that may prevent them from obtaining and maintaining recycling bin locations for the map feature

  2. I would want to conduct further usability testing before making any other changes. Ideally, with a group of 5-6 participants to gather insights into the ease of navigation and organisation of information

  3. Expand on the council features, such as including a council progress tracker to reinforce positive feedback on recycling behaviours. As well as include additional recycling resources and the ability to take council action such as reporting illegal dumping

What did I learn?

Consider the scope before jumping to conclusions

Upon reflection, not enough research was conducted into the format in which we offered this information. Although the need to access this information easily and on the go was evident, this could have been done through the mobile browser rather than a native app. Understanding the need for an app through user research, as well as evaluating Planet Ark’s constraints would have enabled us to make a more informed decision.

Focus on what’s important

When first approaching this project, after we had gathered initial research, I saw many avenues we could have gone down to achieve our solution. We toyed with different possibilities of how users could improve their recycling habits. However, as we synthesised our research findings and began to define the problem, it was clear what was important to our users now and what would be great to consider down the line.

Divide and conquer

There are times during a project when the best decision is to divide the work and leverage the strengths of each team member. By doing so, you can achieve your goals effectively and then use collaboration as a tool to further refine your tasks.