Chapter 3: Methodology
How will I mitigate Electronic Waste and stop the spread?
Chapter III: Methodology
This chapter will include the methodology that was chosen to be conducted as part of this study on the reduction of improperly disposed of electronic waste in New York City public schools. The methodology includes the implementation of yellow 32-gallon garbage bins. These bins have the intent of reducing the amount of electronic waste that ends up in a regular waste stream. This chapter will include the research question, methodology, study participants, role of the researcher, procedure, foreseeable obstacles, and the form of analyzing data.
Research Question
In this study, the research question that is intended to be answered is:
RQ: Will the implementation of yellow garbage bins help reduce the amount of improperly disposed of electronic waste in New York City public schools?
Selected Methodology
The selected methodology of implementing yellow garbage bins as a form of additional waste stream disposal is appropriate when current streams are not effective in separating different forms of waste. The Department of Education lists electronic waste as an “other” category for waste disposal yet provides no additional waste disposal for this category (DSNY 2011). Acknowledging that there is no separate waste stream for this category, creating one was the most appropriate choice to serve this study.
Study Participants
The parties that will be included in the study include the following: the researcher, the teachers of CTE classes, Janitors and custodians, students in CTE classes, and the manufacturers of the electronics that are being disposed of. Each of these parties plays a unique role in this study. The teachers of CTE classes will be responsible for providing lessons on the dangers of improperly disposing of electronic waste as well as proving instruction of the proper disposal of electronic waste. Teachers will be able to incorporate this in the mandatory safety courses at the beginning of the academic year [Safety guide For Career and Technical Education, 2002]. It is recommended that teachers include the completion of these safety courses and proper practice of disposal as part of students’ grades as a form of incentivization for student participation. The role of the janitor and custodian will be to transport the electronic waste bins that will be present to the outside of the school when scheduled pickups occur by the manufacturer. The bins will be taken outside by the janitors where the manufacturer will be able to take the electronic waste that they have produced back to the recycling site that each manufacturer has. This role is unique to janitorial and custodial technicians due to their extensive training and specialty in handling electronic waste in a safe manner. The role of the student in this study will be to practice the safe disposal of electronic waste. The success of this study is ultimately determined by student participation. Students will hold the responsibility of obtaining knowledge that is provided by their teacher on the dangers of electronic waste and how they should handle the waste. The students will be expected to dispose of electronic waste in these bins as opposed to leaving it around the classroom or disposing of it in other waste streams as this is what leads to current problems such as electronic waste contaminating landfills and posing safety hazards [The World Health Organization, 2017). The role of the manufacturer in this study is to pick up the electronic waste that is produced more frequently than it currently is. Currently scheduled pickups are decided by the teacher and with the bins, there is a more accurate timeframe that teachers can use to determine when a scheduled pickup is necessary. When it is necessary, the meeting will be scheduled and the manufacturer will arrive at the school to pick-up and dispose of the electronic waste at their own facilities. Each of these roles is unique to the party that involves them and will be expected to be completed in the laid out format in order to determine the success of this study
The Role of The Researcher
The role of The Researcher in this study is to frequently check-in with each of the study participants to determine the success of the bins in addition to monitoring the yellow electronic waste bins to assess the status of how full each bin it, the content of the bin and what changes need to be made, if any, to address any concerns. The researcher will take note of the feedback given by teachers, students, and custodial technicians on a monthly basis to determine if any changes need to be made. The researcher will be monitoring the bins once a week to assess the status and condition of the bin to determine how successful or unsuccessful it is. The researcher will be responsible for making necessary alterations such as the posters that will be on the bins, the location of the bins, etc. The researcher will check-in with the administration of the school to get any alterations approved before implementing them. These administration members may include the principal, the head of the CTE department, and/or the head of safety at the school.
Procedure
The procedure for implementing the methodology and obtaining the data for this study both starts and ends with the manufacturer. The yellow bins will be placed in CTE classes at the beginning of the school year. The number of bins, as well as the placement of the bins, will be determined by the researcher and CTE instructor. This serves as a pre-procedure set-up for the class. The poster that was created by the researcher which outlines what equipment should be placed in the bins will also be attached to the bins. The instructor and researcher will agree on what necessary information should be provided as part of the safety curriculum to provide students with as part of their respective CTE classes. Once this set-up is complete, the actual procedure may begin. First, the original electronic devices will be obtained from the manufacturer as it already is. Next, teachers will provide courses and knowledge to students on how to safely handle electronic waste as well as define electronic waste by using the previously stated definition. Once the electronic device is deemed as waste by the instructor/teacher because it is no longer functional and cannot be fixed, students will be expected to dispose of the electronic equipment in the allocated yellow bin that was placed by the researcher at the beginning of the year in their shop class. Once these bins are close to reaching its capacity, the CTE teacher will be responsible for scheduling a pick-up time with the manufacturer to extract the electronic waste from the school. The CTE teacher will also be responsible for reaching out to custodial technicians in the school to make them aware that the manufacturer will be arriving at the determined time and date for extraction. On that day and at the scheduled time, the custodial technician will be responsible with meeting the manufacturer representative and transporting the bins from the classroom to the manufacturers’ team that has arrived. The custodial technician will also be responsible for putting the bins back into the classroom to be reused. Following this, the researcher will check-in with the CTE instructor to gain feedback from the instructor and students of the class on how the procedure went. The researcher will also check-in with the custodial technician to receive feedback. Once feedback has been obtained and recorded, the researcher will use this feedback to construct a plan to improve the procedure to be more effective (if need be) in accordance with the feedback that was obtained. Once this plan is constructed, the researcher will meet with the school administration to get approval for these changes. Once the changes are approved, the researcher will make the necessary changes that were requested and inform the CTE teachers and custodial technicians of the changes that were made to improve the procedure.
Foreseeable Obstacles
When the study procedure has taken place, obstacles can be expected to occur. These obstacles include getting students in CTE classes to participate in this study despite it being included as part of their grade and making time for the researcher to check in with the study participants. The schedule of the researcher as a student is still unknown for the coming years and it is possible that the schedule the researcher may have may not align with the schedule of the CTE instructor. This poses difficulty in having frequent check-in meetings with the instructor and may cause delays.
Data Collection and Analysis
The goal of this study is to have multiple researchers that form a team in order to make more meetings that are frequent. This also eliminates bias if a researcher is familiar with the CTE instructor as it will be an entire team of researchers and not just one individual. Not only will this mean that the study can be done more effectively and efficiently, but also be more trustworthy and efficient. This allows for a standardized form of data collection in the form of a check-list form that can be used during meetings to assess the status of the study. These forms will then be digitalized and shared with both the team and the administration in order to create a sense of professionalism and credibility in this study. The collected data will be analyzed by the team together and use different parts of the check-list form to assess different aspects of the study such as student participation, teacher participation, and the overall reduction of electronic waste in schools. The researchers will know if the study is successful or not based on the revisions that are made, the analysis that they provide and the weighing of these bins to determine how much electronic waste was contained per bin in order to determine how much electronic waste was kept out of the regular waste stream.
Summary
In conclusion, the purpose of this chapter included providing the details on the physical implementation of this study. It outlines the necessary study participants, the procedure for the study, the methodology to be implemented, possible future obstacles, the role of the researcher, and how data will be collected and analyzed. In Chapter IV, the results and next steps following the procedure will be explained in detail where necessary details explaining the effects of the procedure will be provided.