Room for change: Impact of building-level innovations to facilitate product reuse among residents

Paper in proceeding, 2017

This article explores the importance of building spaces in residential areas to encourage waste prevention through product reuse. First, a short review is made over five existing spaces that allow residents to leave and take products to be used again by others. Then, the initial experiences of establishing such a space in the HSB Living Lab in Gothenburg are presented to complement the review. In general the experiences of establishing these rooms for change are positive, with users making use of the space frequently. Aspects such as location and open hours are crucial to make the change-stations convenient for residents to use. Making the space available to a large group of people is important to ensure good product flow and renewal. Even though these spaces enable product exchange between users, it is not always possible to link this exchange to a measureable effect on reduced waste generation or consumption. It is not always true that the items exchanged would have been discarded or purchased if the space to change them was not available. There is an exception when the exchanged items are food, since the food made available for others to take would have been wasted otherwise.