Focus

Research Question: “Why don’t more consumers recycle pods?”

After identifying our stakeholders and the connections between them, we decided to narrow our focus. Considering all of the complex aspects of pod-style coffee and its waste management, we sought to research specifically how individuals typically dispose of the cups and why individuals dispose of them in that manner. To dig deeper into this questions, two research methods were chosen: survey and interview.

The team felt that these two methods would best capture the goals and behaviors of the consumer subset of stakeholders. A survey allowed us to gather large samples of data in response to a variety of questions in a short time so that we were able to interpret the popular opinion of consumers. Interviews provided a source of detailed responses from a few consumers, giving us depth into the rationale behind consumer actions.

Survey Results

Responses were collected from 77 people. Such a large-sized response pool provides confidence that the results truly capture the general opinions of consumers in answering our research question. The raw results from the survey are in the “Raw Data” subpage while the conclusions are shown in the “Key Findings” and “Interpreting Data” subpages.

Interview Results

The team interviewed 5 people about their coffee habits. Video clips from the interviews are compiled in the video under the “Phase 2 -Video” page.