Interpreting Data

Survey Key Findings

The data collected from the survey helped characterize the college population’s interaction with coffee pod recycling. In general, college students recycle when possible, with only 18 of the 77 responders never intentionally disposing waste in the recycling bin instead of the trash bin. Additionally, college kids have a general idea for which types of plastic are recyclable, with only 7 of those 77 answering that they do not have a great understanding. While being a population that is friendly to recycling, it is also one with limited pod-style coffee usage. Of the 77 students in the survey, 4 students responded that they use pods daily and 7 responded that they use them frequently, meaning multiple times. The take away here is that while generally open and interested in recycling, college students are not a demographic that has a large use for pod-style coffee, most likely because they are living on their own for the first time and also do not work at a business where pod-style coffee machines are common.

Given this background, the majority of times that pods are used, all of the pod is thrown in the trash. 45 of the 77 responded that everything goes in the trash, 14 state that they are unsure, and 16 stated that they simply do not use pods. This means that almost no pods are being recycled. For the 11 participants who use pods daily or frequency, on 3, 0r 27%, make an effort to compost the coffee grounds or mail the pods back to the company. The take away is that college students are typically contributing to the pod waste issue when using pods by simply throwing everything into the garbage.

Upon investigation of why college students do not recycle pods using the final survey question of “If you do/did not recycle any part of your pod, what is the primary reason,” students were grouped into two categories:

  • Group A: Those who do recycle their pods or list lack of awareness as the reason they do not recycle
  • Group B: Those who responded that the amount of time or effort is the main reason they do not recycle.

Two-way chi-squared tests were then utilized to analyze how the two groups answered other questions on the survey. Participants who have never used pod-style coffee were excluded, so 51 participants were analyzed using these tests. Specifics of the tests can be found in the “Phase 2 – Research > Key Findings Tab.”

  1. “How often do you intentionally dispose of waste in the recycling bin instead of the trash can?” Using a significance level of 0.05, it was determined that there was a significant difference in the proportion of participants who intentionally dispose of waste in the recycling bin between the groups. In other words, members of Group A are more likely recycle than those of Group B. This statistical difference characterizes Group A as those who are more friendly to recycling and Group B as those who are less interested.
  2. “Do you wash out your recyclables if they have been contaminated with food before recycling them?” Using a significance level of 0.05, it was determined that there was a significant difference in the proportion of participants who do or do not wash out their recyclables if contaminated with food between the groups. In other words, members of Group A are more likely to wash out their recyclables if contaminated with food than those of Group B. This result is evidence to characterize Group A as one that takes initiative to recycle materials but is mostly unaware of how to properly recycle pods – only 4 of the 51 do recycle the recyclable portions of their pods. On the flip side, those in Group B, already citing time or effort as factors for recycling the recyclable portions of their pods, are less likely to take the extra time and effort to clean out their recyclables when necessary.

This division of groups, confirmed by the proportion of responses to other questions distinguishes the two main factors preventing people, or at least college students, from recycling their pods. For some, such as most of the members of Group A, it is a lack of education. Pods are more complicated than water bottles or soup cans, and if the recycling process was better understood, more pods may be disposed of properly. For others, this process is known or at least known to take some effort and time, and the burdensome process itself is the root cause for the recyclable portion of pods not being recycled.

 

Interview Key Findings

The five interviews conducted helped characterize the non-college population of coffee drinkers. Based off of the interviewees’ answers to “How do you usually brew your coffee,” this sample group uses Keurigs more often than the college sample. All five use Keurigs relatively often when making coffee, whether that is at home or at work, and 4 of the 5 drink at least one cup of coffee a day. The interviewees uncovered another roadblock to recycling parts of coffee pods – 4 of the 5 said there is no usually a recycling bin present when they are brewing their coffee, while all 5 answered that they do not usually recycle their pods. This issue of accessibility to a recycling bin, combined with the fact that 4 of the 5 do no think it is worth the extra effort to tear apart the pod in order to recycle it, results in all 5 not recycling their pods. A final finding is that this sample recycles less in general when compared to the college sample. 2 of the 5 recycle select materials and the rest hardly do, or only when convenient.

Summary

Parallels can be drawn between all five interviewees and Group B of the college group. Both tend to recycle less, and see the effort required to disassemble pods for recycling as simply not worth it. The interviewees also brought up a third factor  for the issue, which is that recycling bins may not be present in the area where coffee is brewed, furthermore discouraging any recycling from happen. In total, the issue can be represented with the cases listed below.

  1. Case 1: Recycling bin is present.
    1. Group A members: The lack of understanding for the disassembly process is inhibiting any recycling from occurring.
    2. Group B members: The burden of effort and requirement of time is not worth the return of recycling parts of the pod.
  2. Case 2: Recycling bin is not present, so recycling from either group is dampened and likely not present at all.