Abstract
The underlying assumption of our Science, Technology, and Society (STS) coursework as engineering students at the University of Virginia is that all engineering problems and all engineering solutions have both a technological and social aspect to them. The problems and solutions under investigation in this thesis project are those of waste management. What is wrong with how we handle waste, and how can we do a better job of handling it? To put it bluntly, this project is motivated by the grim state of waste in America today. As the names would suggest, my technical Capstone project seeks to address the problems and solutions of waste management in their technical aspect, and my STS Research paper seeks to address the problems and solutions of waste management primarily in their social aspect. Undoubtedly, the technological and the social aspects of waste management are inextricably linked with one another. We ought not approach this investigation with the mind that we can simply legislate or philosophize away the realities of the waste crisis without technological development. So likewise, we ought not imagine that technological development divorced from a sound worldview and policy is healthy either.
For my technical Capstone work, my team and I designed, manufactured, and tested a waste collection robot as a part of the ASME Student Design Competition 2025-2026. This robot is capable of collecting, sorting, and transporting garbage and recycling units through the various terrains of a model city to the appropriate receptacles in a dumpsite. The specifications and movements of the robot adhere to the ASME rulebook and judges. The robot operates safely and efficiently in accordance with traffic laws and waste collection best practices to avoid property damage and waste spillage. The broader aim of the ASME competition and thereby our Capstone work was to learn how to engineer an efficient waste collection system that accounts for speed of collection, effective waste sorting, vehicle maneuverability, and cost and safety of operation.
My STS Research paper makes the argument that the American waste crisis is not ultimately a failure of technology or policy, but a failure of human desire, and that we must restore our relationship between knowing the good and doing it. I use David Foster Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest as a means to understand the way in which unfettered desire cripples both society and the human soul because of the unfettered waste that it necessarily produces. I look at the ways in the novel that addiction to energy, drugs, sports, and entertainment litters human life with waste, and I propose that our understanding of and relationship toward desire and waste is actually the root of the waste problem.
I will conclude by suggesting that the whole ordeal and project of engineering and science and technology are necessary and delightful means to reach good ends, but that in and of themselves are utterly useless and decidedly destructive. It is only from knowing the good that we might ever hope to pursue and do the good be it in waste management or bioethics or whatever the case may be.
