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Phase: Ideas Missions: Make It Fun

Recycleminder. A refreshing way to think about recycling.

This is a simple idea to deliver fun and refreshing reminders to people's mobile devices on a routinely scheduled basis. Recycleminder would prevent reoccurring encouragements to recycle from becoming repetitive and mundane. The original reminder messages are memorable and can encourage users to think about what recycling means to them.

Photo of Shane Zhao
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Explain your idea in one sentence

Recycleminder is an app that delivers daily doses of amusing inspirational reminders to help people think of recycling in a different light.
Recycleminder Prototype Recycleminder Prototype
Recycleminder Prototype Recycleminder Prototype
1. Download Recycleminder
2. Schedule routine Recycleminder notifications after meals.
3. Receive refreshing messages about what recycling can mean to you.

Sample Recycleminder Messages

I was always amused by the 365-day tear off calendars where a different cartoon or image is printed on each page. To give this old idea a new twist, the Recycleminder messages can be mad-lip style sayings where a word is inserted into a sentence to give it a new context. I've taken well know inspirational quotes and inserted "recycling" in place of a key word in the phrase.
 
  • "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's recycling" -Recycled from Anais Nin
  • "Whatever you are, be a good recycler." -Recycled from Abraham Lincoln
  • "Life is like a recycling, you never know what you're going to get." Recycled from Forrest Gump
  • "If you recycle it, you can do it." -Recycled from Walt Disney
  • "Recycling is the foundational key to all success." -Recycled from Pablo Picasso
  • "Believe you can recycle and you're halfway there." -Recycled from Theodore Roosevelt
  • "The power of recycling makes us infinite." -Recycled from John Muir
  • "The best revenge is massive recycling" -Recycled from Frank Sinatra 

As an additional feature, Recycleminder would also crowd source original quotes from its users. People can submit their own recycling minded quotes and gain the satisfaction that their contributions will put a smile in someone's day.

                             ----- Update 05.22.2014 -----
With feedback from Meena and Jes, I realized that Recyclminder can evolve to become a lifestyle app where users can submit photos to illustrate how they have interpreted the daily inspiration quotes. This would introduce a more interactive element and allow users to adopt recycling as a creative way of self-expression.

 

Describe how your idea would help form new habits and improve recycling at home

Daniel Pink identified cues/ reminders to be the first step towards forming a new habit. Recycleminder focuses on how to those cues/ reminders more memorable and fun.

How might you design an early, lightweight experiment to further develop your idea?

Recycleminder can be easily prototyped by building upon the plethora of existing notification and reminder apps that are available for download. We can encourage users to program a sample list of Recycleminder messages into the existing notification apps on their phones.

What aspects of your idea could benefit from the input of our OpenIDEO community?

What are some of your original recycleminder inspirational quotes?
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Inspired by (3)

Strengthening Recycling Habits through Motivation and Reward-based Systems (STREAMS)
Strengthening Recycling Habits through Motivation and Reward-based Systems (STREAMS)
Gamifying recycling - what can we learn from positive psychology?
Gamifying recycling - what can we learn from positive psychology?
If you want to change a habit, understand how it works
If you want to change a habit, understand how it works

This inspired (1)

UPDATED 20 June: How do I recycle this? An app to arm people with recycling know- how (and a why and a where)
UPDATED 20 June: How do I recycle this? An app to arm people with recycling know- how (and a why and a where)

6 comments

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Photo of Jes Simson
Team

Hey Shane, I love your tone of voice, it's really cheeky, fun and engaging. I also love how the quotes will change up each time - it really encourages engagement and builds a fun brand around an otherwise dull area.
Your idea to recycle quotes is brilliant, and conceptually strengthens the message.

Perhaps you could encourage more engagement by leaving off the source of the quotes and asking people to write back where it's from? This may be incredibly annoying, but it could be worth playing around with?

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Photo of Meena Kadri
Team

Digging the notion of some additional interaction for the app. Could be worth exploring various avenues for this?

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Photo of Shane Zhao
Team

Thanks Jes and Meena for the feedback. Yes I agree that the Recycleminder idea can benefit from an interactive component with its users. Perhaps the app can deliver the daily quotes as a fun quiz by asking, "Where do you think this quote came from?" A multiple choice feature can be sent along with the notifications for users to respond.

There is also the option of making Recyleminder more educational where the scheduled reminders can highlight an interesting fact about recycling. The same multiple choice response feature can apply to this option as well.

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Photo of Meena Kadri
Team

I wonder if the interactivity could be more focused on recycling activity rather than thinking activity? :^) What if you were encouraged to send in a photo which best illustrated the quote and each days winner gets points towards some kind of monthly reward? What else could get users focused on looking at recycling opportunities around them?

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Photo of Jes Simson
Team

Hey Meena that could really cool - hack the movie scene to make it about recycling. Maybe you could use vine or Instagram. Or hashtaging recycle fails?

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Photo of Shane Zhao
Team

Great point Meena and Jes. Perhaps Recycleminder can evolve into a lifestyle app. I've been thinking of a way where people can approach recycling as a form of self expression. Submitting photos to illustrate the daily recycling quotes and reinterpreting movie scenes would definitely be a step in this direction! This would allow users to be creative in reinterpreting what recycling can mean to their lives.

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