Waste
Within Nottingham waste is major problem. Only 80% of waste in Nottingham City can be taken to a
plant and be used to heat Nottingham’s water. The other 20% is taken to a landfill site. 20% may not
seem a lot to you but when you think on how much waste there actually is this very large amount
that needs to be cut down.
It is a known fact that not everyone recycles, whether it’s at home or out and about, but why?
The obvious and main reason for this is laziness. People become lazy about recycling because there
aren’t usually recycling bins within the city centre and there are very few people who would keep
their rubbish on them till they got home to dispose of it, also it is rare that people will have two bins
inside (one for recycling and one for waste) which means peoples recycling bins at home are usually
outside which means it is a big effort to go outside and dispose of waste every time something is
used that could be recycled.
I felt that I could not find enough out about Nottingham City recycling on the city council website so I
emailed a member of their team with some questions that he could answer for me; here are my
questions and his responses:

What do you think the main reason is for someone not to recycle?
‘ The question is a little bit broad I’m afraid but if people are given the facility to recycle, in my
opinion, the only reason not to recycle is either laziness/lack of social conscience or lack of
understanding as to how the recycling service operates in their area.’

Why are there not recycling bins provided for public use within the city centre?
‘Until recently there were recycling bins in the city centre for public use but more often than not we
found that the material deposited was so heavily contaminated with non-recyclable items or food
waste that the material was often rejected by our material recycling facility. In light of this and as part
of a strategic saving it was decided that the bins in the city centre would be replaced with solar
compactor bins. These compact waste inside the bin using solar energy, allowing for the bins to be
emptied one third as many times as was required before, this meant that one less crew and vehicle
was needed in the city centre, creating the strategic saving for the Council.’

Which residential areas do not have recycling bins that get collected?
‘All areas of Nottingham are provided with a kerbside recycling service with the exception of a small
area of St Anns, roughly equating to 1200 properties. These properties are awaiting roll out of the
service which we hope will be shortly after the New Year.’

Do all city centre flats and business' have recycling bins?
‘All city centre flats have access to kerbside recycling. It is not a statutory obligation for Local
Authorities to provide waste services to businesses. Nottingham City Council does operate a
commercial collection service however, collecting alongside other competitors within the city centre,
for a fee. Whether a business wishes to receive recycling collections as part of that waste service is a
decision taken by that business but it is a service which Nottingham City Council offers and
encourages our business customers to take advantage of.’
The link between the answers to all these questions is laziness and being unaware of recycling. There
could be two possible reasons to why the recycling bins failed within the city centre with the
members of the public. The first could be that people are lazy so they just would through their
rubbish in the nearest bin to them or not dispose of any food waste in the packaging first before
recycling it. The second could be that the public are unaware of the recycling and have a fear of
recycling. When facing a challenge of where to place your rubbish it’s hard because people aren’t
always aware of the material. I think making the public aware would help largely with recycling,
however not everyone is interested in it and therefore may not take much notice. The positive thing
that the council has done from this is the solar bins. These are powered by day light and have a
crusher inside to compact the rubbish as much as possible. When they are nearly full they send a
signal which alerts the council that they will soon have to be collected. This means that one less crew
and vehicle have been needed within the city centre this has helped on saving on costs and cutting
down pollution from vehicles as they do not have to drive around checking the bins.
Target Audience
The population of Nottingham is currently around 306,000 with 34,000 of these people being
students. As from the interview questions from a member of the city council I can see that the
council have already been improving their recycling from homes. This leads me to believe from my
own experience that a lot of the waste comes from student accommodation and a lot of
accommodation does not provide recycling bins. There for my target audience will be at students;
student accommodation specifically.
Emotions
When disposing of rubbish people do it that often it just becomes a typical thing to place something
into a waste bin. It is only when people become aware of recycling and waste that they might start
feeling emotions around it. For instance as people learn about recycling, waste and the harm to the
planet now and in years to come they may start feeling guilty when placing something that could be
recycled into a waste bin.
Getting people aware of this is easier said than done as people who aren’t interested will not go out
their way to read something or suddenly become interested. These people may have to be targeted
to get from them a different emotion other than guilt.
Within London there has been bins placed around that use celebrities voices to speak when rubbish
is thrown in them. This encourages people to throw there rubbish away because they are influenced
by the gimmick as it makes them feel happy and find it funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP2wTzIktX8
Something needs to be incorporated into my design to either make the user aware of recycling or
feel emotions when recycling whether it’s feeling guilty or happy about doing so.
Laziness
People are lazy and do not want to be venturing outside every time they use a can of beans or finish
a bottle of milk of etc. The solution to this would be simple, just get more bins. However, people
don’t
do this because
they don’t want their kitchen cluttered with
bins as they
don’t look aesthetically pleasing and for most people they simply do not have the space for a
number of bins.
Issues with recycling bins



In public people panic and don’t know how to categorize their rubbish, this may be easier at
home and maybe with a bit of guidance.
Different sections of the bin might become fuller than others and therefore need emptying
more often; determining the size of the different sections and how much rubbish will be
made of each one may help.
If the recycling bins are in the City Centre someone will have to be paid a wage and fuel
would be used to go and check whether they need emptying.
Existing product
There is an existing product that I would like my design to be similar to as they are both trying to
achieve space saving. The bin is called the ‘Ovetto recycling bin’. The bin is made from recycled
plastic and encourages recycling by its design. It contains three compartments and a central
compartment for bottle crushing to help recycle at ease. It rotates on a central axis so it can be
placed in the corner of an office or a home space and can still be easily accessed. Also supermarket
bags can be placed into each compartment so that bin bags do
not have to be used. This is another was of ‘reuse’ and
‘recycling’.
I think this bin is a well thought out iconic design that would
work well in any space. Every little detail has been thought
through and this is what makes it work well. It is available with
different coloured doors. If the off white version is ordered
coloured stickers come with the pack to be placed on the doors
so that the user can choose the colour that they wish to
identify different materials with.
Materials Research
Currently, recycling bins are manufactured from either plastic or stainless steel. Usually it is the
plastic recycling bins that are used for inside and the stainless steel ones used for outside.
When researching what recycling bins are currently made of I came across a material I would see as
suited best for my product. This material is called plastic lumber. Plastic lumber is a recycled
materials manufactured from a number of everyday plastic items, it can be made up of the following
plastics: HDPE (high density polyethylene) , PVC (polyvinyl chloride), PP (polypropylene) , ABS
(acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) , PS (polystyrene) and PLA (polylactic acid). Although made from
recycled plastics plastic lumber is made into the form of timber and can be shaped using
woodworking tools.
The plastic lumber would be a more than suitable material to use as it is resistant to splitting and
cracking, it requires less maintenance, it is waterproof and resistant to all types of rot. There is no
need for it to be painted as it comes in a variety of colours and it is resistant to harsh cleaning
chemicals. Once the recycling bin has finished its product life, plastic lumber is 100% recyclable.
On the corners of the bin I will be using stainless steel corner trim. This gives it the right finish and
also can help with the construction of the bin. The panels will be slotted together and the stainless
steel corner trim will disguise this. Also, stainless steel is 100% recyclable once the products are at
the end of their life.
Using these materials the bin will be much lighter than if heavy steel was used making it easier for
the hook to be able to support the wait of the bin.
The product will not be slotted together till after it has been placed either in store as a display or
until it is placed in the flat. The product will be transported as flat packed so that there can be more
bins packed up in one lorry making the shipping more efficient.
The materials used in for the manufacture of this recycling bin are 100% recyclable making the bin
sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Design Specification
From gathered research I have come to a number of decisions of what the recycling bin will need to
do/feature to gain the most usability and become most effective to try and make people recycle.
The bin will need to have separate compartments for the number of different recycling materials.
The compartments could be fixed different sizes or adjustable sizes, as from research I have learnt
that one of the reasons for recyclable material being placed into a waste bin is because the recycling
bin is full. If the bin could be made bigger when full it could by the students more time and then they
would be aware that the bin would need taking out next time rather than it being put in as waste.
The bin needs to be able to fit into a decent sized shared kitchen. It could be hung somewhere or
simply tall and slim so that not much room is taken up. One of the reasons for not recycling is due to
people not having enough space in their flat for more than one bin (which would be a waste bin) this
would mean them having to go outside and place their recyclable materials in the bin every time.
The purpose of the bin is to try and make Nottingham more sustainable. To push that even further
the bins could be made from a recycled/sustainable material.
It could somehow educate its users to what they have to recycle or humour could be incorporated
into the design. Adding knowledge to help understanding or humour would encourage people to
recycle as they will get an emotion out of it and be more aware of how it’s helping the environment.