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Creating visibility: understanding the design space for food waste

Published: 04 December 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Support for ecological sustainability is of growing interest and the over-consumption, production and disposal of foods are a major concern for sustainability, ethics and the economy. However, there is a deficit in current understandings of how technologies could be used within this area. In this paper we focus on food waste and report on a qualitative study to understand daily food practices around shopping planning, gardening, storing, cooking and throwing away food, and their relations to waste. The findings point to design-relevant factors such as losing sight and reordering; spatial, temporal and social constraints; trust and valuing food source; and busyness, unpredictability and effort. The main contribution of this paper is to understand food practices and in turn to present seven dimensions of visibility to draw out implications for designing mobile and ubiquitous technologies for this new arena for design. We also present a prototype evolving from our qualitative results, the mobile food waste diary.

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    cover image ACM Other conferences
    MUM '12: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia
    December 2012
    383 pages
    ISBN:9781450318150
    DOI:10.1145/2406367
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    Published: 04 December 2012

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    Author Tags

    1. food waste
    2. human food interaction
    3. in-home tour
    4. mobile diary
    5. qualitative study
    6. sustainability

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    • (2024)In Between Users and Developers: Serendipitous Connections and Intermediaries in Volunteer-Driven Open-Source Software DevelopmentProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642541(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2024)Cerebrating and engagement, paths to reduce fresh produce waste within homesScientific Reports10.1038/s41598-024-58250-014:1Online publication date: 6-Apr-2024
    • (2023)Optimizing the Distribution Network of a Bakery Facility: A Reduced Travelled Distance and Food-Waste Minimization PerspectiveSustainability10.3390/su1504365415:4(3654)Online publication date: 16-Feb-2023
    • (2023)FridgeSort - Improving Fridge Sorting behaviour to reduce Food Waste through a Mobile Serious GameProceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia10.1145/3626705.3627801(420-427)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2023
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    • (2023)Enhanced incentive schemes for volunteers to distribute surplus food in smart citiesSustainable Cities and Society10.1016/j.scs.2023.10440991(104409)Online publication date: Apr-2023
    • (2023)Learning from Other Communities: Organising Collective Action in a Grassroots Food-sharing InitiativeComputer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)10.1007/s10606-023-09468-532:4(951-999)Online publication date: 14-Aug-2023
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