food waste hero

Food Waste HeroAntony Quinn11 June 2013

Introductions

Hello!

Interaction design: human behaviour, emotions and experiences.

Summary

1. Understand2. Design3. Build4. Demo5. Future Work6. Acknowledgements7. Q & A

Summary

1. Understand2. Design3. Build4. Demo5. Future Work6. Acknowledgements7. Q & A

Food Waste in the UK

Nearly a fifth is avoidable

Why?

70kg per person per year

Direct costs...

... and indirect costs

● Financial○ Electricity: fridge/freezer○ Petrol: supermarket○ Council tax: refuse collection

● Environmental○ Pollution (air, water, land): agriculture, processing,

transport, retail, disposal○ Biodiversity: land use

● Social○ Food security: imports○ Malnourishment: higher prices and opportunity costs

Lack of awareness

"We don’t realise how much we throw away. Even householders who are adamant that their household wastes no food at all are throwing away 88kg of avoidable food a year."

A familiar storyBut I don't like crusts!

Eugh! Mouldy potatoes!

Hmm...

USE BY:11-JUN-13

An unfamiliar story...

The Rise and Fall of

Billy the Banana

15,000 bananas just like Billy are thrown away by UK families every day.

Please...

THINK BEFORE YOU THROW

Summary

1. Understand2. Design3. Build4. Demo5. Future Work6. Acknowledgements7. Q & A

Making the unremarkable remarkable

the humble bin the humble scales awareness

Behaviour change

"Behavioral economics ... studies the effects of social, cognitive, and emotional factors on the economic decisions of individuals and institutions". [Source: Wikipedia]

We are influenced by:

Messenger - who tells us

Incentives - rules-of-thumb

Norms - what others do

Defaults - go with the flow

Salience - what's novel & relevant

Priming - subconscious cues

Affect - emotional associations

Commitment - public promises

Ego - feeling good about ourself

Design

"Today one the leading-edge areas in which design can influence behaviour change is in relation to safeguarding the environment ... giving home-owners immediate and understandable visual feedback".

Jeremy Myerson, Helen Hamlyn Professor of Design, Royal College of Art

[Source: MINDSPACE 02 March 2010]

We are influenced by:

Messenger -

Incentives

Norms - UK average

Defaults

Salience - twinkly lights

Priming

Affect - smiley faces

Commitment

Ego

Waste separation

Maths

Use a simple number to tell a complex story of global economics, politics and human values:

if > 0 : wasting more than per capita average

Notes:● 0.61 = 61% ["most of the food we throw away (4.1 million tonnes or 61%) is avoidable"]● 192 = 70,000g / 365 = 192 grammes ["on average, every one of us throws away 70kg of

avoidable food a year"]

Summary

1. Understand2. Design3. Build4. Demo5. Future Work6. Acknowledgements7. Q & A

Google Spreadsheet

Information visualisation

Version 1: Arduino

Version 2: Raspberry Pi

● UK schools● Python● "Internet of things"● USB postal scales

Summary

1. Understand2. Design3. Build4. Demo5. Future Work6. Acknowledgements7. Q & A

Demo

tinyurl.com/fwh-niab-2013

"Billy" take 2

Summary

1. Understand2. Design3. Build4. Demo5. Future Work6. Acknowledgements7. Q & A

Potential Partners

● WRAP: Waste & Resources Action Programme

● Ellen MacArthur Foundation: Circular Economy

● Schools: storytelling, D&T, computer science, art, biology, history ...etc

● Local government: Landfill Tax, pay-as-you-throw, national and international targets

● CSR: Tesco, M&S, Pret-a-Manger

Questions

● Purpose of food?○ nutrition○ social bonds ("quality time")○ dieting○ fads (superfoods/celebrity chefs)○ 5-a-day

● Not segmenting by number in household - problem of the "mean" (report fig. 163)

● Simplify for schools: spreadsheet + kitchen scales

Design challenges

Reality is messy

Summary

1. Understand2. Design3. Build4. Demo5. Future Work6. Acknowledgements7. Q & A

AcknowledgementsMINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy - Paul Dolan, Michael Hallsworth, David Halpern, Dominic King, Ivo Vlaev (02 March 2010)http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/mindspace

The Food We Waste http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/foodwewaste_fullreport08_05_08.pdfUpdates: www.wrap.org.uk

Thank you David

Thank you!

antony@antonyquinn.co.uk

@antonyquinn