THE GREEN BRACKETS -
DESIGNING FOR EXPERIENCING RUBBISH ISSUE AWARENESS THROUGH PARTICIPATORY DESIGN

The rubbish issue, as one of the ‘global crisis’, has becoming a big concern all around the world and not only is this a political issue, but it is also a problem that affects human beings and our living environment.

 “The Green Brackets” was a research project using people’s life experience to address problems associated with rubbish and to inspire design ideas for rubbish issue awareness. The work, the green brackets book and video, tell the story of the designer’s process and how people interacted with the design idea. The intention was to brighten up this ‘dusty’ topic, offering people a fresh, fun way to see, think, act and reflect.

In Ezio Manzini’s Products in a Period of Transition: Product, Service and Interactions for a Sustainable Society (Balcioglu 1998), he pointed out that “…the character of novelty of the ‘new products’ must require a redefinition of the very concept of that product.” Influenced by his theory, this work proposed a strategic way to address rubbish issues and a novel way to communicate and disseminate the idea.

The work functions on a cultural level rather than as materialized product design. Instead of designing bins or recycling solutions, identified in the pilot study as not very effective response to the problem, the approach was to discover what people say and how they behave, but also what they think and desire. By identifying the real problem, the work offered a way to change or lead people to think and do using their life experience in their life context. People’s physical and emotional experiences were elicited by using participatory design toolkits which were designed easy, interesting and accessible to allow people to complete tasks enlightening the designer to their unspoken experiences and thought, expressed through their own imagination and creativity. The effective application of design methods, user testing and communication media made the work accessible and acceptable to a wide ranging audience comprised of different ages, genders and social / cultural background.
 
The final concept, the green brackets, which focused on the “I am not a waster” idea, was intended as a rubbish marker, a graphic bin, a signal, or a slogan, and was successful in getting people’s immediate attention and participation.  In future, the work proposes to engage more people in the story and to demonstrate how it can continuously contribute to environmental protection and sustainability through, for example, a website www.greenbrackets.com, where people can find information on the green brackets stories, festival, adverts, fashion shop, pursue environmental protection standard, etc. and also useful links to other recycling and greener living websites.