Observational research — elderly carton collectors

7 min readJul 18, 2021

Introduction

The ageing issue in Hong Kong is getting more and more critical according to the report of population ageing trend of Hong Kong by Hong Kong Economy(Wong, K & Yeung, M.2019), Between 2018 and 2038, the size and share of the elderly population will almost double from 1.27 million and 17.9% to 2.44 million and 31.9% respectively, we will eventually become one of them who will make quite a significant impact to the economic and society.Nevertheless, on the authority of the Hong Kong poverty situation report ( Government of Hong Kong.2019), 32% of elderlies still suffer from poverty, for instance, my uncle who used to work as a security guard, now monthly receives 2845hkd old age allowance from the government but pays roughly around 1000hkd for the bills of the place he’s living in, thus, elderlies get commonly spotted working after the retirement in public especially the elderly carton collectors.

Therefore, I decided to spend sometime in observing the community of carton collectors in order to figure out any way to optimise their situation.

Observation

Through a small chat with one of the carton collectors, I was informed there were a few reasons she chose to live on collecting cartons, Firstly, no academic requirement for carton collection, secondly, cartons are generally more hygienic than other sorts of wastes, thirdly, flexible working hours. In the further design of potential solutions, those advantages should be remained or improved.

Features

During the observations in the photo shooting, a few features were perceived.

1, Different working preference in different locations. In order to understand this cluster of elderlies better, I went to To Kwa Wan, Kowloon City and central to observe them, in the residential areas such as To Kwa Wan and Kowloon city where more roadside stores are, elderly carton collectors are more commonly spotted working in the street.but in the business area with better city planning and management such as central, elderly carton collectors work more around small convenient stores, including 7 11, CircleK and Vango.

An elderly carton collector slept between 7 11 and Circle K in Pottinger St,Central

A trolley of cartons got spotted both in front of 7 11 and Circle K in Pottinger Street, Central

2,They are mostly female.

3,In the spare time, they are more likely to appear in the public parks, playgrounds, benches or any seats on the roadside.

Problems

1,Wet cartons. Enormous elderlies would water the cartons in order to add more weight especially while quantity doesn’t meet their expectations.Nonetheless, as stated by Greenmatters (Krosofsky, A(2020),the wet cardboard makes it harder to sort with automated machines and it can get caught in gears or lodged in the mechanism, plus The fibers within the cardboard can become brittle and crumbly, making it much less valuable and much worse for recycling. In some cases, the wet cardboard may be completely unusable.

A water container is commonly seen around them, Kowloon City.

2,Long travel. I followed this granny from To Kwa Wan to Hung Hom, according to google’s estimation, it takes around 10 minute to reach the destination, however, she took 19 minutes to get there as elderlies have senescence issues of joints and bones with age in general.During the process of carton collecting, she’s familiar with the stuffs from the stores she went to, the connection she has is probably the reason of necessity in long distance traveling.

3,No adequate stable resources, the majority of them doesn’t use smart phones or internet that they only can reply on physical moves in searching for resources.

Relevant solutions in the past

During the process of researching for any charity or organisation which has ever worked on fixing those problems, a company called ‘The Second Box’ was discovered，They have got some fundings through some foundations, the idea is to purchase the cartons directly from the elderly collectors at a higher market price, process and resell them to seafood shops, storage companies, pharmacies and local residents, secondly, to process the cartons and turn them into display boards, background boards and so on.the last post on facebook which was the only official website was on 2nd May 2017 (The Second Box.2017),They launched a shopping platform called The Second Life to sell some daily products around the end of 2016 but ended in March 2017 (The second life.2017).I personally really respect and admire the idea, then I followed some news and interviews of the company that I discovered a few difficulties in their business as shown below.

1,Difficulty in getting the trust from the elderly carton suppliers.

2, Unstable amount of cartons to offer consistent supplying to the merchants.

3, Hygiene concerns from the end-users.

4, Quality control.

Analysis and Solutions

According to the features, problems and difficulties above and the design action grids we learned.There are some ideas.

1,Set up an NGO company to offer help to elderly carton collectors and supervise the quality of the cartons for the recyclers.(diagram)

2,Partnership with the government, demonstrate the process of quality control and sanitisation , promote this service by labour department, Social Welfare Department or even by the social workers to build the reliable public image and trust to the elderlies and raise the social awareness for this cluster through television, radio, newspaper and leaflet distribution which elderlies are familiar with.

3, Build a partnership with Octopus,Design a carton recycle bin and information with electronic engineerings, which automatically generates and coveys data to each other. Make exclusive collaborations with supermarkets, local markets, convenient stores, shopping malls, commercial buildings and residential communities in order to get allowance for the implants of recycle bins.When suppliers donate certain amounts of the cartons, the information station will automatically distribute the collection information and print out on a piece of paper with all the pick up information on to the elderly.The more merchants we collaborate with, less travel the elderlies need, more sufficient the quantity is, less water needed.

4,Since elderly carton collectors highly associate with convenient stores in either residential areas or commercial areas, we cooperate with convenient stores, innovate the Octopus system that can offer the same function as information station does, elderlies can get the information of the carton distribution through their Octopus sensor there.

5,Build an phone application that the NGO organisation can monitor the data so that they can predict and solve irrelevant problems, moreover, the AI operator of the application also can make automatic calls to the numbers we registered for the elderly carton collectors.

6,As a huge amount of the elderly carton collectors are females, they are more likely to buy daily food from the local market and groceries that we may focus in implanting the information station of carton collection in those areas as the primary priority, secondly in the public parks, playgrounds and roadside leisure areas where they often appeal around in the spare time.

7,Accept donations from the public, use as the work commission for elderlies.

Reflections

I think I concentrated in observing the surface problems but neglected the deeper needs and causes.I got more insights each time I went to the street to observe this cluster however it was brainstorming for me work out the solutions in low and choose design components according to design action grids to fit the target audiences.It reminds me of ‘design and communication’, decisions in design obviously significantly how I communicate with my target audience.In mean while, through this research, I see some potential commercial opportunities and ways to help people while we confront the increase of elderly population by 31.9% between 2018 and 2038.