Design effect of PET bottle recycling bins on PET bottle recycling behaviors through course practice activity for undergraduate students – Part I: Effect of design on cap removal and other wastes contamination

Abstract

Department of Transdisciplinary Science and Engineering, School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Institute of Technology offers a course for undergraduate students. In this course, students designed and fabricated PET bottle recycling bins. To collect more PET bottle, encourage cap removal, and to decrease other waste contamination into PET bottles, students discussed better designs in group work. The fabricated recycling bins were set for one week for PET bottle collection experiments in Tokyo Tech Ookayama campus. Design preference toward each recycling bin was scaled using pairwise comparison method with Scheffe’s method (Nakaya variation). This study found that design of recycling bins gave no significant impact on cap removal. On the other hand, better designs increased other waste contamination into collected PET bottles.