PHLASK: Creating an Ecosystem for Finding and Sharing Resources in Philadelphia
Our team consists of developers, UXers, and sustainability SMEs. Here we are pictured at a talk by Gary Burlingame, Director of Lab Services at Philadelphia Water Department.
So, what is PHlask?
Life-sustaining resources should remain abundant, clean and accessible to everyone. The PHLASK mission is to help people find publicly available resources, and to encourage private enterprises to provide access to excess resources - simply by PHLasking. Hoarding and privatizing access to life-sustaining resources is inefficient, wasteful and inhumane. We hope to help amplify growing efforts to normalize resource sharing and challenge the ethics of enterprises who exploit the public commons for profiteering.
PHLask is a web and mobile map essentially, helping folks in Philadelphia find free and safe water sources to fill their re-usable water bottle up while on the go. Our goal is to make water sources more accessible, and ultimately make purchasing bottled water less tempting.
Sounds great. How did I contribute?
When I joined the team, I buried myself in secondary research, and discovered some interesting paradoxes. We are all aware that plastic water bottles are not good for the environment (that’s an easy one). So why are 43% of Philadelphians not using their tap water?
Even more alarming, a large portion of the Philadelphians refusing to drink tap water are considered to be low income -families. Bottled water is 2000% more expensive than tap water, creating an unnecessary financial burden.
So why are Philadelphians not drinking tap water even though it is 1) better for the environment, 2) significantly less expensive, and 3) just down-right more convenient?
It all boiled down to something very simple: 33% of people in Philadelphia don’t believe their tap water is safe.
I brought a new skillset to the PHlask team with my knowledge of UX research - specifically a research roadmap to critically examine how users will interact with the PHLASK Map / App, engage stakeholders (citizens and private companies) in contributing to the process, and help demystify why Philadelphians don’t think the drinking water is safe along with any other reason tap water is not appealing. This research will not only influence the main, intuitive features for our MVP, but allow us (in)validate if we are solving for the right problem for this space. It will also help us conceptualize what an effective PHlask ecosystem could look like to drive the behavioral change from drinking bottled to tap water.
I highly recommend joining a team that is passionate about civic work. I thoroughly enjoyed learning from my teammates and sharing in their dedication to making Philadelphia (and someday, the world) a better place to live.
One resource used in secondary research: https://www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/commentary/bottled-water-increase-soda-tax-philadelphia-demographic-breakdown-opinion-20180214.html