Designing for human behavior to enable circular packaging

Society's linear model of consumption - make, use, and throw - is not sustainable. Waste management systems have not been built to handle the production and consumption patterns of the modern age nor are they equipped to swallow the dramatic escalations and changes in product packaging. Single use packaging is an issue that resonates with customers and helps them understand the impacts of climate change, which creates an opportunity to engage with interested stakeholders and incite customer action that could lead to wider and longer-term behavioral and system changes that benefit the environment. This thesis leverages the human-centered design process to understand the context of and challenges with packaging today for a consumer technology company, uncover insights and form a specific research question, generate potential solutions, and gather user feedback on the potential solutions. This thesis presents findings from users on concepts to reduce the environmental impact of single use packaging and highlights themes in human behavior that could inform packaging design for sustainability.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Integrated Design and Management Program

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Lakhani, Sabira.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Libby McDonald.

• Integrated Design and Management Program.
• Engineering and Management Program.
• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/132838

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/132838