When appreciative inquiry guides action research: collaborating to improve waste sorting

Figures & data

Figure 1. Collaboration with stakeholders.

Figure 2. Workshop method connecting appreciative inquiry with action research.

Figure 3. Illustration used in workshop 1.

Table 1. Phases of appreciative inquiry.

Phases of appreciative inquiry (4D)	Discussion
Discovery: What works well? When has it worked best?	Here participants used examples from the region, such as the big supermarkets and the city blocks with large waste rooms. Properties with a close proximity to the waste rooms were another example and situations where the bins did not have to travel a long way to the waste trucks.
Dream: What would the best situation look like? How is this different from the current situation?	Examples from this discussion were a future where underground bins mean we do not see the waste. Fewer transports and smaller vehicles was another such vision. Good locations for collection points and smarter bins were also mentioned. An improved collaboration between the involved actors was desired. A system where residents sort their waste into colored bags was mentioned.
Design: What solutions would you like to see during the project process?	These included: transparent bins, bicycle transportation for waste, sharing waste rooms between properties, giving the residents bins for sorting waste and letting those bins travel with the mixed waste. We also returned to the idea of colored bags sorting. The construction of temporary shared waste rooms was also discussed.
Destiny: How do we take the next step to fulfill these solutions?	Here we continued to discuss the ideas of colored bags and a waste room and ways forward to test these. This phase continued during the next workshop.

Figure 4. The sorting system delivered, from top left: colored glass (black), plastic packaging (red), newspapers (blue), metal (gray), colorless glass (colorless), and paper packaging (yellow). In addition, the residents already had the option to sort food waste (green).