In Ciudad del Saber, Fundación de Acción Social Panamá operates a recycling center that faces a budget deficit, inefficiencies with its operation, and an unsuccessful public education effort. Through working remotely with our sponsor, Fundación Ciudad del Saber, the team strived to uncover the problems, improve the recycling operation, and educate the visitors about the importance and correct practices of recycling. By using literature review, an online survey, four interviews, and two virtual tours, we discovered the biggest issue at the center is material contamination. Using this result and others, we proposed six recommendations about workers’ training/retraining, tailored education programs, visual control usage, layout rearrangement, equipment usage, and forecasting and scheduling.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Curney, Xavier M.
• Pawlak, Katherine A.
• Do, Hoang S.
• Graham, Ethan R.

Subject

• Environment
• Sustainability

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• 4416
• E-project-101520-181515

Keyword

• material contamination
• recycling
• operations and supply chain
• sustainability
• FAS Panama

Advisor

• Kinicki, Robert
• Chiarelli, James A.

Year

• 2020

Center

• Panama City, Panama Project Center - IQP

Sponsor

• Alessa Stabile
• Ciudad del Saber

UN Sustainable Development Goals

• 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities

Date created

• 2020-10-15

Resource type

• Interactive Qualifying Project

Rights statement

• In Copyright