Why and what did we throw out? Probing on Reflection through the Food Waste Diary

Issues of consumer food waste in industrialised countries are becoming an increasing concern and this is paralleled by a growing interest in HCI to support more sustainable consumption practices. In this paper we report on a mobile food waste diary application that was made available on app stores, with the aim of enabling motivated people to reflect on their moments of food waste and to explore rationales. Through analysis of the entries submitted by users of the diary application, we identify instances of reflection located on different levels. The intention of supporting reflection was visible in instances of submitted diary entries where deeper insights about the relationships between food waste, previous experiences, habits, knowledge, occurrences and intentions to change were offered.