ARWAVs | Ambre Assor

The negative impact of human activity on the environment is partly due to thoughtless consumption that generates unnecessary waste. One contributing factor is the invisibility of waste: individuals’ waste is either out of sight or removed quickly. However, when waste disposal systems fail, the visible result can offer a powerful educational message.

Inspired by these phenomena, we developed ARwavs—Augmented Reality Waste Accumulation Visualizations—which display literal representations of waste data directly within the user’s real environment using AR.

We created several examples of ARwavs and showcased them during:

Feedback sessions with environmental behavior experts
A major public technology exhibition

Our study found that ARwavs elicit stronger emotional reactions compared to non-immersive visualizations or numerical data alone.

People Involved

Publications

Ambre Assor, Arnaud Prouzeau, Pierre Dragicevic, Martin Hachet
Augmented-Reality Waste Accumulation Visualizations
ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies 2 (11), pp. 1–29
DOI: 10.1145/3636970

Project Images

An employee views the amount of waste generated by their cafeteria over a week using AR

Accumulated single-use plastic cups visualized with Hololens 2

Left: An employee views the weekly waste from a company cafeteria through virtual trash bags in AR. Right: Accumulated plastic cups visualized using Hololens over a specific period.

People Involved

Publications

Project Images

References