Students to brainstorm recycling improvement ideas as part of UF IGNITE program

A student-led organization at the University of Florida's Engineering Innovation Institute will host an event Saturday to address issues and improvements with the recycling of glass and plastic in Gainesville.

UF IGNITE (Innovation Gator Network for Inspiring Technological Entrepreneurship), started in September 2023, is an innovation leadership group inspired and led by students. Based out of the Engineering Innovation Institute (EII), the group aims to provide a culture of innovation, networking and entrepreneurship within the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and across the university itself.

Over the weekend, IGNITE's Creativity for Engineers Program will host its first Design Thinking Social Project which will allow UF students — through the power of design thinking — to improve the recycling of waste in the community.

The event aims to address issues with waste disposal — specifically plastic and glass — at the Leveda Brown Environmental Park and Transfer Station and explore creative solutions through design thinking methodologies. With the help of local artists and innovators, students will use creative and artistic principles to solve the problem of excess glass and plastic waste within the community.

Representatives from the transfer station will explain problems to students and why it's so difficult to dispose of the glass and plastic waste. From there, innovative community members will guide students through an ideation phase where they come up with innovative solutions to the problems presented.

"When it comes to the recycling center, it's mixed glass, and there's a lot of plastic that also gets mixed into it, and they really don't have a good way of filtering it without using an incredible amount of resources," said Dow Walker, IGNITE Creativity in Engineering coordinator and UF student. "It's just not economically feasible for the transfer station to manually sort this. So, what's been happening is they're collecting it because they... don't have anything to do with it, they don't have anybody to sell it to or anywhere to put it... that's just an issue that they're dealing with right now, is just they don't know what they could possibly do with it."

Members of the Gainesville's innovation community, such as former startGNV executive board member and current EII professor Melissa White, will guide students on "a journey to reimagine recycling practices and tackle ongoing challenges at the park," a news release said.

Additionally, local artist Jen Garrett will help students explore creative ways to turn waste into meaningful art. A news release said she will help students "explore creative ways to repurpose waste materials into meaningful works of art, enriching our community in the process." Garett is known for her sculptures internationally and around Gainesville, such as the “Bounce” sculpture for the new Alachua County Sports Complex in Celebration Pointe.

"One of the big reasons that glass and plastic waste is dirty when it comes to the transfer center is because people aren't super educated on how exactly they should be disposing of glass and plastic waste," Walker said. "So what ends up happening is, you know, it gets dirty and it gets mixed... We wanted to create an artistic solution to this... We will have a few engineering focus groups that'll work on the exact process that the plant will go through to get rid of this waste once it gets there, but in terms of artwork and how we're going to approach this artistically, I imagine that one of the solutions will be raising awareness to the community about how they should be getting rid of this waste."

Solutions will be pitched to park representatives at the end of the workshop, and their feedback will be considered, in hopes of the transfer station eventually implementing the ideas.

The design thinking event will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at UF's Herbert Wertheim Laboratory for Engineering Excellence.

IGNITE Programs

The IGNITE Creativity for Engineers Program aims to inspire innovative solutions to challenges in engineering through collaboration among students from various fields such as business, engineering and art. It promotes teamwork, collaboration and innovation across academic programs in an effort to inspire "creative collision" on campus, a news release said. While other IGNITE programs are geared towards engineering students, the creativity program welcomes students of all majors with a focus on art and business students.

Since the start of 2024, IGNITE has hosted a monthly series, including five creativity workshops to promote artistic thinking within the College of Engineering. A news release said these workshops feature different types of artists in theatre, painting, comics, dance and music "in hopes of cultivating a new generation of well-rounded and creative students."

Students can also take part in opportunities outside of the classroom through other IGNITE programs — a total of eight — such as a weekly seminar series, a student-led startup incubator and a student and industry engagement program, among others. Similar to the Creativity Program, a news release said these additional programs put emphasis on "inspiring a new generation of innovative and entrepreneurial minded engineers, empowering them to explore their ideas and make meaningful contributions to the academic and professional communities."

As of now, 15 students are registered for the Design Thinking Social Project on Saturday, but Walker said he expects around 30 to attend.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: UF IGNITE Design Thinking Social Project recycling waste