Megachange : One step at a time, the solution to plastic waste.
We all know that plastic waste has negative effects on the environment for many reasons. Some may say it takes a long time to degrade, piling up over time, some may say it makes natural habitats uninhabitable for wildlife. Plastic pollution causes great harm to the organisms killed by the ingestion of plastic or entanglement. Resulting in millions of animal deaths a year.
And we know that switching from plastic products to reusable alternatives is better in the long run, and many people are well aware of it, but some will say that even if it is more environmentally friendly to use alternatives, plastic products are just more convenient, like, why would you carry a thermal cup or reusable bag around instead of just picking up plastic cups or bags.
But little do they know, according to our research, average Thai people still consume 8 plastic bags per day, accounting for the overall plastic waste of 2.7 million tons a year, which mostly consists of plastic bags and styrofoam. But the country is not leaving the matter unsolved. The Thai government has proposed a plastic waste management plan that will be implemented in 2019, to limit plastic consumption, starting by reducing mass-produced plastic products. In 2027, the government will set a goal to only use recyclable plastic and reusable alternatives only.
Although many plans and knowledge have been spread to people, one important thing that people can not overcome is just the simplicity and convenience of plastic products, so overpowering that people would still choose to use plastic products than alternatives
So, we know that it is hard to convince people to DO something to help us become more environmentally friendly because people have reasons not to, we are going to change their behavior, because it requires fewer resources and time to tackle the issue by doing this, rather than going out and raising awareness of plastic pollution. We all know that we are living in the most technologically advanced time of mankind, changing behaviors of people will never be any easier.
And after all of the problems we have mentioned to you, we think that if we decided how to solve all kinds of these problems by ourselves. It probably is not going to provide a solution that is effective and feasible. That is why we have researched more about the solution to these behavioral problems.
Firstly, “Alipay”, Alipay is an online payment app. The user can pay for various products quickly and easily via smartphones.
The advantages when you use Alipay:
- Safe
When you use Alipay, there is no need to carry around bank cards or large amounts of cash.
2. Fast and convenient
Enter your pin code to make a payment online, no repetitive filling out of personal info and card details for every transaction.
3. Widely recognized
Alipay is China’s most popular e-Wallet service, closely followed by WebChat Pay.
4. Secure
A pin code is needed to authorize every transaction. If you have a smartphone with a Touch ID feature, then you can also use your fingerprint to authorize the transaction.
5. Comprehensive
Alipay can be used to pay for almost anything while you’re in China. As well as offering in-store and online mobile payments, the app also allows you to top-up your mobile airtime, order, and pay for a taxi or takeaway.
6. Receive remittances quickly
Alipay’s partnership with WorldRemit means that Alipay users in China can now conveniently receive remittances from overseas directly into their Alipay e-wallets almost instantly.
https://www.worldremit.com/en/stories/story/2020/02/22/alipay
How it changes human’s behavior
Alipay serves as a kind of e-wallets that is a clear leader of online third-party payment services, and aims to provide a safe, secure, and easy-to-use way for millions of individuals and merchants to make or receive a payment when handling online transactions. Alipay is most widely used in China due to its innovative technologies, user-friendly services and outstanding multi-function payment features. In addition, all online transactions through Alipay are without transaction fees. From a payment security perspective, it provides an escrow service, which enables the buyer to verify whether the goods satisfy them before transferring the money to the seller.
https://www.ru.nl/publish/pages/769526/z01_rongbing_liu.pdf
This is a highly entertaining and interactive game that you will find in the ECOLIFE program. It’s simple to get points by simply refusing to use single-use plastics or disposing of them in authorized recycling places. Then scan the QR code to start growing your Eco Land and Eco Pets. Furthermore, you will earn Eco points, which can be redeemed for special deals. The application’s menu will show you where our approved recycling places are. You can share with your friends how you helped to make the world a better place to live. As a reward for completing good things, you will receive fascinating and unique offers. ECOLIFE has a mini-game called “Catching Eco Pets” that you can play.
For disadvantages of the Ecolife application, There are 3 key points of disadvantages that can be noticed easily through this application which are diversity, collaboration, and motivation. For diversity, This application has only 4 sorts of plastic equipment including bags, straw, cups, and utensils for users to choose what they will except for their goods which are not diverse for types of plastic garbage. About the collaboration, this application didn’t participate with the stores much as it could be which led to the lower number of customers who use this application because the number of stores that they collaborate with is not enough for the customers’ desire. In terms of motivation, The application doesn’t have enough attractive features to convince the users to come and play again. It needs to be something that is created to motivate the users to retain their continuous development.
https://thestandard.co/ecolifeapp/
We have studied and gathered more of the appeals of these 2 apps, how they attract users and how they affect users’ behavior, we then think it is a great choice to create an application that will play a big role in changing users’ plastic consumption behavior. It will be a mobile application that monitors users’ plastic consumption on a regular basis and will help remind users to act accordingly to their app preferences. It will also feature a game that lets users spend in-app points to play and encourage users’ interaction.
Here is our finished product, the application called “Megachange — one step at a time”. Our main focus group is the generation between Millennial(1981–1996) to Gen Z(1997–2012), these generations were born in the digital age so the application and smartphone can be more related to these generations. And our purpose is to change people’s behavior to reduce the excessive use of plastic to decrease the amount of overall trash or basically we want to change the way of life into “zero-waste behavior”, which means the human behavior doesn’t involve any use of plastic or any kind of waste that are going to affect the earth, by using this application, the function of it is to create more tangible value from the zero-waste behavior to encourage and attract the people to use this app to help change their behavior. The reward system is the main function we brought into the development process. Every time a user uses less plastic products or uses an alternative, they can share their pictures through our app. Not only that, the picture can also be shared to many social media platforms so you can let people know that you used a bag to shop instead of carrying nasty plastic bags today. And after you take a picture choose the type of plastic that you prevent from using it, you will earn a point. Different categories, different amounts of points. And the point can be exchanged into the coin for spending in a specific part that was created for users to spend coins, we call it “Megagame”. Now let’s take a look at our user-interface that we have created step by step.
This is the main screen of the application. It is a minimalistic and clean looking interface, it won’t offer users with unnecessary graphics, just simple buttons and features. And there are 5 main features of our app; My goal, photo-check-in, discover, my profile and Megagame.
- MegaGoal
This function is for you to manage the plastic-saving in each day.
2. MegaProfile
This page shows the point progression and if you wonder how many plastics you have saved from the beginning you started to use this application until now, we will show all of the pictures with date and time when you took those pictures on the ‘plastic diary’ page.
3. MegaCam
Take a picture and you can choose what kind of plastic wastes you just saved and after uploading the pictures, we provide you a choice to show your activity on the social media platforms.
4. MegaDiscover
The picture you upload will show it on the page, you and other users can see each other’s pictures and location where the pictures were taken.
5. MegaGame
This is a part of the Megachange app that lets users spend their hard-earned coins from reducing plastics to use it in the game. It will be a free-roaming game that lets users interact with parts of the game, like growing plants or decorating your house, just like in certain farming games. There are unlockable areas in the game where you can spend in-game currency to unlock and many features, like an indoor garden, shopping for seeds or customizable themes for your garden. We also provide users with a friends system so they can interact with other players in-game or through social-media, or you can interact with them by sabotaging their garden.
With all these features and research we have done, our project still has some limits. After we finished the prototype of our application. We tested it on two users who are in the length of the focus group area and they gave us some feedback and we concluded that “the users weren’t interested in using this app, the design in the application part is boring, and application provided the tutorial but it forgot to show the homepage tutorial, so after users are done with the tutorial, they still have no idea how to get access into each functions we just showed to them”. So the feedback we received was partly affected by the time constraints during the development process and the knowledge that we were able to put into the development, thus flaws were noticed by the testers. We have taken the feedback and improved the application to make it appeal more to the users.
In the end, even though our app will not be an almost perfect tool for people who are willing to reduce plastic waste and help the world be a better place, we think that all the hard work will still mainly rely on how people behave. Our application may help them succeed this goal faster and we surely believe that, with some dedication, humanity as a whole will eventually overcome this ongoing problematic crisis together.
My lovely MegaMembers
DBT214 Man and Ecosystem
Professor : Massimo Ingegno
Thammasat University
Faculty of Architecture and Planning
Design, Business, Technology, and Management (DBTM)