Week 3: Defining Users
What are some struggles people are facing when pursuing more sustainable lifestyles?
📌 Introduction
You are probably wondering how I jumped from last week’s post, where I was on a fence between 2 broad areas of interest, to interviewing people already this week. Well, I kind of forgot to mention that by this week, we should have one topic.
It wasn’t easy picking one over the other — mental health or sustainability. These topics are important and interesting to me, but sustainability is an area I haven’t tapped into. It is filled with an overwhelming amount of news and information, but I need a challenge.
For this week, we were asked to consider who our potential users could be in the future and interview them. I joined a Facebook group and posted that I was looking for people available to talk about sustainability. Surprisingly, people responded saying they were interested — never underestimate the power of asking for people’s opinions!
Since climate change affects everyone, I considered users in Gen Z, Millenials, Gen X, and even Baby Boomers. However, my target is beginners, as it is harder to start and continue new habits. Here are the people I talked to this week and what they had to say.
🎤 First Interview (Saturday, Oct 17th at 11:00 AM)
The first person I talked to was Grant; a 52-year-old Canadian freelancer focused on helping businesses be sustainable. He is extremely resourceful and advanced in his journey to sustainability. Something to point out is that even though he is at an intermediate level, he feels like his progress has plateaued.
“We have city collections or the city does process the organic, I think they use it to make electricity. They have a powerful operation that will digest, an anaerobic digester, that will eat all the compost and produce electricity.”
As we discussed the differences between our countries and how Canada deals with composting, I shared with him that I had a similar idea for my home country. A few years ago, while being back in Panama and helping my mom gather our recycling to drop it off, I told her that someone should open a company and charge people to pick up their recycling monthly. (I know I’m not supposed to be thinking about solutions at this point, but I couldn’t help myself.) When Grant heard this, he recommended me to connect with local farmers and see if farmers could also help take care of my compost ––this lit up some part of my brain.
He also mentioned hardcore people in sustainability, like his friend, who keeps all his plastics and mails it to a company called Terracycle. This American company makes deals with other companies that will collect plastics and send them to a recycler and process them. This is not connected to the government; this is commercial recycling. Their service requires you to mail your waste to them, which you have to pay and is not cheap, and they will recycle it for a fee.
Plastics is something Grant complained a lot about, specifically how he keeps some of it for too long. For example, he keeps the little plastic clips that are on bread and admitted having around 100.
“So, basically any bags or containers are generally recyclable as long as they’re clean, but anything flexible is –probably 80% of the time– not recycled. It’s a real nightmare recycling.”
He also suggested me checking out many platforms and other groups on Facebook and documentaries like the one Greta Thunberg just realized, which I need to watch. On what he would recommend people starting their journey, he said:
“It’s sort of like skiing, I would say, you know? You don’t just go into the Swiss Alps on your first time, and spend $1,000 on ski equipment.”
🎤 Second Interview (Saturday, Oct 17th at 1:20 PM)
Then, the interview turned to Gowtami; a 27-year-old Indian student enrolled in Textile Ethics and Management at the University of Boras in Sweden. She is a firm advocate for second-hand clothing, as she is always encouraging family and friends to stop the cycle of shopping addiction.
Gowtami, who thanks her studies for awakening her interest in sustainability, is at a beginner’s level. She recently joined the Facebook group where I found her at––Sustainable Living––to learn about alternatives to try out.
I hate seeing plastic. Why do we keep doing this and using it? Thinking about recycling frustrates me, because I think it has to be recycled properly, so if someone doesn’t recycle properly it bothers me.
One major change she incorporated into her lifestyle is avoiding plastic bags. She mentioned that she always carries her own bags and a trolley to do groceries and avoids getting the plastic bags provided at the vegetables’ section. She also shared that it is difficult to compost at her apartment, but she thanks her mother for teaching her how to do it in India.
🎤 Third Interview (Monday, Oct 19th at 7:30 PM)
For my last interview, I talked to Helena; a 24-year-old American designer focused on ensuring designers follow sustainable guidelines. She also does graphic work for the startup she works for.
Her upbringing comprised of basic recycling practices, which later, combined with her studies in fashion at Parsons, led her to pursue veganism and thrifting. She categorizes herself at an intermediate level, as she believes nothing is perfect in sustainability.
“There are more young activists that are kind of blowing up, and people are actually looking towards them for like leadership so I feel like there is hope.”
Helena is hopeful about the future, but half of her thoughts make her doubt about it. Even though there is more attention to the issue now, her apprehension stems from the concerning amount of natural disasters we are seeing happen every year around the world.
Something that struck in our conversation was the mentioning of a long excel spreadsheet she found on some Instagram account. Someone had taken the time to gather where to find your closest farmer’s market that accepted your food waste around all New York City. She promised to help me find this spreadsheet ––okay, she didn’t promise. She offered. Again, I won’t say this made me think of a solution but it did lit something in my brain.
We also discussed how there’s no education related to recycling in high-schools. This should be part of their curriculum if we want to start building healthier habits. Towards the end of our conversation, we both agreed that Youtube is an excellent educational tool and menstrual cups are an affordable money-saving investment.
💭 Thoughts and Next Steps
These interviews were extremely helpful. All of the participants gave input on different areas, from fashion to marketing, and provided me with multiple resources.
Even though I spoke to sustainability enthusiasts at very different stages of their journey, it was very clear that there’s a need for more educational tools and standardization of practices that help beginners not fall into rabbit holes.
For this coming week, these are my next steps:
- Learn more about city compost collection systems / Waste Wizzard.
- Read more about Terracycle and its process.
- Join more Facebook groups, like Zero Waste Toronto, and reach out to members.
- Watch documentaries (a nice educational break).
- I already have 3 interviews scheduled for this weekend, but I would like to reach out to younger audiences in the upcoming weeks, probably through Instagram.
- Get the excel spreadsheet Helena mentioned and start composting!
For those of you who made it this far, thank you for taking the time of reading through my post.
If you would like to connect and share your opinion, please reach out to me at crussoherrera@sva.edu.
See you soon!
