VALUABLE WASTE: Designing an interactive science centre exhibition about the plastic recycling process
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Industrial design engineering (MPDES), MSc
Publicerad
2021
Författare
Gottfridsson, Jonatan
Tjörnevik, Linus
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Plastic pollution has become an increasingly considerable problem that affects both humans, animals
and nature
across the globe. One way to address this problem is to change peoples’ view of the value of
plastic. That would in turn induce a change in the approach to plastic to be more sustainable since
it would be considered more valuable. A change in approach would also cause the behavioural change
that is needed to reduce the plastic pollution. Changing peoples’ view of something can and should
be done in many ways. One way to do so is to develop a science centre exhibit that will trigger
emotions, spread knowledge and enlighten people about the value of plastic which will function as a
spark for the needed behavioural change.
This master thesis, called the Valuable Waste project, was about that science center exhibit. It
was carried out by the Industrial Design Engineering master programme students Linus Tjörnevik and
Jonatan Gottfridsson at the Department of Industrial and Materials Science at Chalmers University
of Technology. The design bureau Boid was the project initiator.
The aim of the Valuable Waste project was to develop an interactive plastic recycling exhibit. The
project was carried out in three phases. Phase one consisted of literature studies, observations
and interviews. This phase also contained the development of the Exhibit Scoring method, with which
structured and evaluating observations were conducted in order to define the characteristics of
successful science centre exhibits. The result from this phase was the Successful Exhibit
Guidelines list. The gathered data from phase one served as the foundation of phase two, where
the concept library was formed and filled with numerous element concepts. The concepts
were evaluated and morphologically put together to a first holistic concept, Plastfabriken
1.0. In phase three Plastfabriken 1.0 was further developed and redesigned in order to make it
more realizable. In this phase, user tests were conducted. Phase three resulted in a second and
final concept of the exhibit; Plastfabriken 2.0.
Plastfabriken 2.0 is a real working PET recycling machine that is developed to be the centerpiece
of an exhibition at the science centre Universeum. It consists of the necessary elements
needed for a plastic recycling process; cleaning, shredding, washing, drying and creating, and does
thus have the function to recycle used PET into new molded plastic parts. Each element is
designed to, according to the Successful Exhibit Guidelines, have an intriguing and
enjoyable user interaction.