A group of students from the Department of Art and Design, Faculty of Arts, and the Department of Design Science, Faculty of Engineering, at Tamagawa University (Machida, Tokyo) have teamed up with Machida city to launch a project to co-create effective ways to raise awareness about the separation of plastic containers and packaging.
Machida City has been working on separating plastic containers and packaging in the area south of the Yokohama Line since 2016, but the cooperation rate is only 35%, and further awareness raising is an issue. As there are plans to expand this initiative to the entire Machida City area from 2026, the Environmental Policy Division of the Machida City Environmental Resources Department requested Tamagawa University to "incorporate the power of students to encourage citizens to raise awareness of garbage separation." This project was launched.
After the kick-off meeting on July 7, the students are working with the staff of the Environmental Policy Division to gain knowledge about sorting plastic containers and packaging and to visit the site, and from August they plan to hold workshops and other events to build a concrete image. By combining the students' innovative ideas with the administrative power and experience of Machida City, it is expected that they will be able to approach demographics that could not be reached with conventional awareness-raising methods and create new awareness-raising methods that will resonate with the hearts of Machida residents.
Participating students expressed their enthusiasm, saying, "I would like to use what I learned at university to do my best to help explain to the people of Machida how to easily separate plastic containers and packaging, something that is necessary but can seem a little difficult."
