From Recycling Stations to Community Spaces: Exploring Relational Aspects and Community Engagement at Local Recycling Hubs in Copenhagen
Author
Heidensleben, Agnete
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2026
Abstract
This thesis investigates how service design can support social innovation by strengthening relationships and community engagement at local recycling hubs in Copenhagen. While these hubs mainly function as infrastructures for waste sorting and reuse, the project explores their potential as community-oriented spaces where citizens can collectively develop more sustainable everyday practices in a context marked by Denmark’s high per-capita resource footprint. Using a qualitative, research-through-design approach and methods such as interviews, observations, service safaris, mapping, co-design and design experiments, the study examines the hubs from a systemic and relational perspective. It identifies differences between functional service encounters, such as recycling, swapping and donating items, and more relational activities characterized by active participation and collaboration. A co-design workshop with users and stakeholders further explores qualities that foster community engagement, highlighting in particular the importance of making users’ contributions and their value to others visible. These insights are translated into a design experiment in an existing, primarily individual service encounter by introducing enabling elements that make users’ actions visible and invite collaboration. The findings suggest that relational services cannot be directly designed, but that service design can shape the conditions under which relational qualities and collaboration can emerge, depending on participants’ willingness to engage and to bring their own relational capabilities into play. The thesis concludes that a service design approach can contribute to social innovation at local recycling hubs by creating opportunities for participation, strengthening relational dimensions within existing services and experimenting with more collaborative forms of interaction, and it points to the need for further research on how to scale such initiatives for broader societal and sustainable impact.
Denne specialeafhandling undersøger, hvordan servicedesign kan understøtte social innovation ved at styrke relationer og fællesskabsengagement på lokale nærgenbrugsstationer i København. Udgangspunktet er, at nærgenbrugsstationerne primært fungerer som infrastrukturer til sortering og genbrug af affald, men at de også rummer et potentiale som lokale mødesteder, hvor borgere kan udvikle mere bæredygtige hverdagspraksisser sammen. Med afsæt i en kontekst præget af Danmarks høje ressourceforbrug per indbygger anvendes et kvalitativt, forsknings-gennem-design-udgangspunkt og metoder som interviews, observationer, service-safari, kortlægning, co-design og designeksperimenter. Gennem en systemisk og relationel analyse identificerer studiet forskelle mellem funktionelle serviceinteraktioner, fx sortering, bytte og donation, og mere relationelle aktiviteter kendetegnet ved aktiv deltagelse og samarbejde. En co-design-workshop med brugere og aktører afdækker kvaliteter, der understøtter fællesskabsengagement, herunder særligt betydningen af at synliggøre borgernes bidrag og deres værdi for andre. Disse indsigter omsættes i et designeksperiment, der afprøves i en eksisterende, primært individuel serviceinteraktion ved at introducere muliggørende elementer, som gør brugernes handlinger synlige og inviterer til samarbejde. Resultaterne peger på, at relationelle services ikke kan designes direkte, men at servicedesign kan skabe betingelserne for, at relationelle kvaliteter og samarbejde kan opstå, afhængigt af deltagernes vilje til at engagere sig og bringe deres egne relationelle kompetencer i spil. Afhandlingen konkluderer, at en servicedesign-tilgang kan bidrage til social innovation på nærgenbrugsstationerne ved at skabe nye deltagelsesmuligheder, styrke de relationelle dimensioner i eksisterende services og eksperimentere med mere kollaborative former for interaktion, og den peger på behovet for videre forskning i skalering af sådanne initiativer for større samfundsmæssig og bæredygtig effekt.
[This abstract has been generated with the help of AI directly from the project full text]