Human Center Design and Engineering research team discuss possible changes to their website and app layout. Their website and app will make it easier for non-profits to gain access of leftover food from the UW dining halls.
Food is the largest component of waste in landfills. While composting food waste reduces greenhouse gas emissions from landfills, the enormous input of land, water, and energy that went into producing the food still goes to waste while people are going hungry.
Human centered design and engineering lecturer Irini Spyridakis and student Madison Holbrook are leading a research group that hopes to both reduce the negative environmental impacts of campus dining and help those struggling with food insecurity by designing a website that can match UW dining hall leftovers with local nonprofits.
The idea arose during the advanced sustainable communications class that Spyridakis teaches, in which students go through a mock proposal process, developing oral and written pitches for sustainability projects. Holbrook’s pitch for a food recovery website was one of the highest-rated by her classmates. Though she did not envision taking her proposal outside of the classroom, the idea of repurposing campus leftovers had been on her mind since arriving at the UW.
“I would go to places around campus and there’d be a lot of food and I’d be really grateful about that,” Holbrook said. “Then I would go outside and I would see people sitting on the side of the street that were hungry. In my mind, I was like, ‘There has to be another way, there has to be a connection.’”
Spyridakis encouraged Holbrook to develop the idea as a real project. Together they made a proposal last year to the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF), an organization that funds student-led sustainability projects. A team of students was assembled for a Directed Research Group (DRG) for fall quarter 2017. Espen Scheuer, the committee chair of CSF, was so interested in the project, he got involved as a website designer.
“I was super interested because I am a prospective informatics and HCDE student,” Scheuer said. “I thought it was a really good intersection of that and environmentalism where it wasn’t unnecessary technology and it had the real capacity to make a difference.”
The DRG needed information from nonprofits and dining halls to create a system that would meet each party’s needs. CSF coordinator Kyle McDermott helped the group forge connections with departments on campus, and with facilitation from purchasing and project specialist Kara Carlson from Housing & Food Services, the DRG was able to meet with managers from dining locations all over campus.
The group found that for managers, simplicity was key.
“Dining halls’ managers are very, very busy and they may not have time to put into a system that’s really demanding,” Holbrook said. “We had to really make sure the system we were creating was easy, straightforward, quick for them to really be effective.”
Students also worked to interview over 50 food shelters. They discovered that delivery was an issue. Shelters often lack consistent volunteers who can transport food on a regular basis. Because of this, Holbrook and Spyridakis chose to assemble student volunteers for the project to deliver the food.
This quarter, the DRG is working to test the website and Local Point is serving as the pilot dining hall. Its manager and head chef Andrea Benson, after having seen many groups try and fail to recover leftovers, was still willing to try a new system and was able to give valuable feedback.
Human Center Design and Engineering research team infront of their prototype website/app. Their website and app will make it easier for non-profits to gain access of leftover food from the UW dining halls.
Back row, left to right: Joyce Huang, Zubin Chopra, Irini Spyridakis, Madison Holbrook, Espen Scheuer, Ria Athavia, Srinithi Sellakumaran Latha
Front row, seated, left to right: Brent Gruenke, Ariel Lin, Meghna Shrimanth Bhairappa, Collin Tran
Not pictured: Jessica Hye Won Son
“Other people could have just been like, ‘I don’t want to learn a new system, I don’t want to do these things,’” Holbrook said. “Andrea was the complete opposite. She was like, ‘I know there’s a problem. How can I fix it? How can I help?’ which was really amazing.”
If the pilot is successful, the team hopes to incorporate the HUB in the fall.
The DRG is also designing the website to be open source, meaning it is easily accessible and adjustable, so other universities and facilities with large dining halls can create their own food recovery systems. This is important nationally and internationally because, though the United States is the most wasteful, food waste is a global issue and widespread change is needed.
“To continue to have so much food go to waste is irresponsible and we can all do better,” Spyridakis said.
Reach reporter Gabriela Tedeschi at news@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @GC_Tedeschi
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