LBGA Online School · Track 2: Professional OperationsModule 2.6 · Certification
Module 2.6 · Community Infrastructure
Design the bin, shape the behavior
By the time a citizen stands in front of a bin, most of the outcome is already decided — by stream architecture, incentives, and the shape of the hole in the lid. The Track 2 capstone: design infrastructure so the right choice is the easy one.
The first design decision is how many bins a citizen faces. Single-stream (everything in one bin) lifts participation because it asks almost nothing — and pays for it with higher contamination mixed into every commodity. Dual- and multi-stream systems keep bales cleaner but shift sorting effort onto residents. There is no free option, only a trade-off tuned to your MRF's capability and your buyers' specs.
Design rule: choose the stream count your processing line and commodity buyers can actually absorb — not the one that looks best in a brochure.
Briefing 2 · The financial nudge
incentives
Where behavior must change at scale, price beats persuasion. Container-deposit schemes (bottle bills) attach a small refundable value to each beverage container and routinely achieve 80%+ return rates — clean, sorted material that never touches the curbside stream. Pay-as-you-throw pricing does the same upstream, charging households by the trash they generate rather than a flat fee.
Operator's read: a refundable dime outperforms any sign ever printed. Design the incentive first, the poster second.
Briefing 3 · Design the ideal path
the details
At the bin itself, the details do the sorting. Shaped apertures — a round hole for bottles and cans, a slot for paper — physically reject the wrong item. Consistent colors across the whole city build habit; photo-based signage of actual local items beats text and icons; and every recycling bin needs a paired trash bin beside it, or it becomes the trash bin.
The one-second rule: every extra second of decision at the bin raises contamination. Good infrastructure design removes the decision entirely.
Knowledge check · Community infrastructure
LBGA · Academy
Designing Community Sorting Infrastructure
Professional Operations Certification · 2.6
Question 1 of 2
What is the core trade-off between single-stream and dual/multi-stream collection?
Field brief
Redesign one station
Pick one public sorting station — a park, a campus, a transit stop. Audit it: apertures, colors, signage, and whether a trash bin is paired alongside. Note where people actually fail, then sketch one concrete improvement. That sketch is your first infrastructure memo — and your Track 2 capstone artifact.
① Audit a station② Note the failure points③ Sketch the fix