Chua Kai Jun (SOC), Huang Ziwei (FASS), Jeff Sieu Yong (SOC), Loh Xin Yi (FASS)
Academic Advisor: Ms. Sadaf Ansari
The long-term environmental impacts of single-use plastic, coupled with Singapore’s limited landfill capacity, highlight the urgent need to reduce plastic waste. For RVRC students, one simple way to mitigate this problem is to use lunchboxes instead of single-use plastic containers when doing takeaway. However, our preliminary survey indicated that most students do not adopt this solution due to inconvenience of washing the lunchboxes by hand. Our project addressed this problem by designing and testing a dishwasher prototype as a more convenient alternative. First, we measured the prototype’s effectiveness based on three key design criteria: hygiene, time required to wash, and water consumption. After making required design adjustments, we invited RVRC residents to test our prototype. Based on the results collected during the implementation phase, we found that our prototype was effective in all three criteria, and was also identified by residents as a more convenient alternative to wash reusable lunchboxes by hand.