Citizen science-based waste diaries. An exploratory case study of household waste in Switzerland
Loading...
Author (Corporation)
Publication date
30.04.2024
Typ of student thesis
Course of study
Collections
Type
01A - Journal article
Editors
Editor (Corporation)
Supervisor
Parent work
Sustainability
Special issue
DOI of the original publication
Link
Series
Series number
Volume
16
Issue / Number
9
Pages / Duration
3800
Patent number
Publisher / Publishing institution
MDPI
Place of publication / Event location
Edition
Version
Programming language
Assignee
Practice partner / Client
Abstract
Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12) and national waste reduction goals require frequent waste analyses for monitoring and governance decisions. We developed and tested a citizen science (CS)-based household waste diary for ten consecutive days with 89 volunteer households in Switzerland as a complementary monitoring option to official composition analyses. Discrepancies between the CS-based household diary data and the official composition analyses ranged between 55–65% less reported waste quantities for minerals, compound products, and plastics and 80–90% less for paper, avoidable food waste, and glass. Household waste diaries should be digitalized and prolonged to 21–28 days, and volunteers from different demographic groups are needed to produce stratified, representative results. We conclude that a hybrid CS study design involving waste composition analyses and waste diaries could reduce self-reporting biases while increasing the monitoring frequencies of household waste compositions. CS-based hybrid household waste projects can be a powerful means to complement the measures identified in the 2022 Swiss action plan against food waste and for data reporting for the SDG 12.3 Food Waste Index.
Keywords
Citizen science, Household waste diaries, Food waste monitoring, SDG 12
Subject (DDC)
Event
Exhibition start date
Exhibition end date
Conference start date
Conference end date
Date of the last check
ISBN
ISSN
2071-1050
Language
English
Created during FHNW affiliation
Yes
Strategic action fields FHNW
Publication status
Published
Review
Peer review of the complete publication
Open access category
Gold
License
Citation
Breitenmoser, L., Behner, D., Baertsch, A., Mondardini, M. R., & Hugi, C. (2024). Citizen science-based waste diaries. An exploratory case study of household waste in Switzerland. Sustainability, 16(9), 3800. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16093800