Community-Based Research in Rural Alaska Native Communities Informs Hazardous Waste Disposal Technology
Published January 15, 2025
On a brisk spring day on the wind-swept Alaska tundra, members of a small, predominately Alaskan Native fishing community joined staff from a state-wide nonprofit to collect and pack household waste containing lead, mercury, flame retardants, and other toxic substances. The team packed 3,334 pounds of electronic waste, 12,558 pounds of lead acid batteries, and 283 pounds of universal waste lamps (e.g. fluorescent, mercury halide and similar lamps). The collected waste was transported to Seattle, Washington, for proper disposal or recycling. Waste packing efforts like this one are a key step in removing hazardous waste materials from rural Alaska communities, where such waste might otherwise be burned or discarded in unlined landfills.
Managing waste in remote areas can present unique challenges. Approximately 200 rural, remote Alaskan communities operate Class III landfills, which are unlined due to environmental, economic, and logistical constraints. Waste is often burned to reduce the volume of materials going into the landfill, but this practice can release toxic emissions from hazardous household waste (e.g., batteries, electronics, and light bulbs). These emissions can impact human health and subsistence resources that are culturally and economically important, especially for Alaska Native community members. To prevent the potential release of toxic emissions, many communities employ an approach known as “backhaul.”
Backhaul involves transporting cargo on a barge or plane’s return trip when it would otherwise be empty. Although some small communities can secure discounted backhaul shipping rates, the costs for backhaul shipment can still be high and limited staffing can make logistical coordination challenging. Additionally, training is needed to ensure waste is packed properly and safely for shipping.
In 2018, the Solid Waste Alaska Taskforce (SWAT), a multi-institution state-wide team, began Backhaul Alaska, a program aimed at supporting solid and hazardous waste removal in rural communities. The program builds community capacity, creates local jobs, coordinates statewide recycling logistics, and provides free training and assistance to ensure safe waste-packing for transport. With funding from EPA, a pilot group of 27 communities tested the program from 2018 to 2021. During the pilot, SWAT identified opportunities to improve logistics, training, and coordination through a mobile application. Through existing partnerships, SWAT and EPA began a research project to identify areas where a custom application or similar technology could build capacity for Backhaul Alaska and its support of community and Tribal backhauling needs.
The research team assessed local needs using the concepts of human-centered design and community-based research. They collected information through interviews and workshops with Backhaul Alaska participants and external experts, observations of Backhaul Alaska activities and pilot application use, and evaluations of program reports and background documents. Researchers qualitatively analyzed data using several thematic coding approaches, which provided foundational information for mobile application developers to consider.
The research provided several insights into priorities for a mobile application, including the ability to work offline, data synchronization, detailed inventorying, geo-tagging, photo sharing, and communications. Rural communities faced challenges such as limited telecommunications infrastructure and harsh environmental conditions, requiring a robust user-interface and the ability to work offline and sync with a central database when online. Users also needed to effectively document locations and waste status, storage facilities, and other relevant community infrastructure.
While the initial plan was to develop a custom mobile application, the Backhaul Alaska program administrators and the research team concluded that creating a custom application would be too costly and time consuming for the emerging program. Instead, they selected a third-party application(ArcGIS Survey123) that addressed many of the program’s most pressing needs, such as inventorying, mapping, and database management. Although some features, like in-application communication, were not included in the adopted application platform, the social science and design methods were used to give the research team a holistic assessment and understanding of the tradeoffs involved and allowed for ability to pivot if necessary to meet user needs. For example, rather than evaluating custom user interface options that were not available at that platform, they focused on foundational knowledge of Backhaul Alaska’s app needs, ensuring that Backhaul Alaska was prepared if new development options were chosen in the future.
The research team complied a comprehensive analysis and report of Backhaul Alaska’s application needs for potential future collaboration with custom application developers. The report included profiles about the different types of application users (e.g., local, regional, and statewide coordinators, administrators, shippers, and external interested groups), as well as anticipated program changes that might require additional study. This research effort can also serve as a case study for how human-centered design approaches can be used to help address environmental challenges and can guide future projects that are considering human centered design approaches.
Today, Backhaul Alaska has already exceeded the program’s 2025 goal to serve 75 communities and continues to expand. The adapted application from 2021 still meets the program’s current needs, although developing a custom application to enhance communication capabilities may be considered in the future. By listening to program participants, assessing tradeoffs, and prioritizing needs, the research team created a valuable tool for Backhaul Alaska to support hazardous waste removal from rural communities. As one backhaul worker said, “… with the app, it’s easier because now we have the entry of what we have ready … [We] just open the app and simply look up what we’ve got going on.”