Assessing the social, economic, and technical sustainability of closed-loop plastic bottle recycling in Malawi

PhD Research Plan Draft (28 Nov 2022)

Introduction

Background

Plastic is increasingly found in products around the world, despite the lack of waste management infrastructure to deal with it after use. Low- and middle-income countries in particular are struggling with the influx of plastic waste from single-use products, the majority of which end up in the environment. In sub-Saharan Africa, 94% of plastic is sent to landfills or inadequately disposed (OECD 2022). The focus of my doctoral project is to develop a context-specific plastic recycling solution in these settings, considering social, economic, and technical aspects. By capitalising on an opportunity to work with key stakeholders in-country, this research has the potential to pave the way for plastic recycling at scale in Malawi.

The primary goal of my doctoral research is to a design and evaluate a closed-loop plastic bottle recycling scheme with social, technical, and economic sustainability in mind. This research will (I) assess the willingness to recycle high density polyethylene (HDPE) bottles; (II) evaluate how the technical properties of the plastic change after recycling; and (III) model and assess the economic feasibility of recycling HDPE bottles in this context.

Due to the various angles of the plastic problem, a mixed-method approach is proposed, including physical assessment, focus group discussions, surveys, and lab studies. This work will be carried out in collaboration with a motivated Malawian beverage brand owner, Chibuku Products; a plastic converter, Arkay Plastics; and a local NGO experienced in waste management solutions, WASTE Advisers. Chibuku operates outlets known as “Chibuku Taverns” that are managed by “tavern mamas” since legally only women can serve traditional beer.

Collection/ storage, sorting, and transport are three of the main barriers to plastic recycling (Fogt Jacobsen, Pedersen, and Thøgersen 2022) (Truss Group 2022). With beverages that have a shelf life as short as one week, Chibuku owns a fleet of 60 trucks that regularly distributes products throughout the country. The trucks that return empty provide an opportunity to overcome one of these major recycling challenges: transport. In addition, the Chibuku Taverns offer a place for collection and storage, solving another main issue. Since Chibuku uses only two easily distinguishable plastic bottles (one polyethylene terephthalate or PET and the other HDPE), sorting can easily be done visually without the near of expensive near-infrared technology.

Study sites

Blantyre is the manufacturing hub for Chibuku Products in Malawi and location of the partner NGO, WASTE Advisers. Arkay also has a manufacturing facility there capable of recycling HDPE. Therefore, Blantyre was chosen for this research to facilitate communication and collaboration with Chibuku Products, Arkay Plastics, and WASTE Advisers. There are a total of four Chibuku taverns in Blantyre, all of which will be studied.

It is important to note that the HDPE bottles that are targeted for recycling contain a non-alcoholic maize drink called Super Maheu and are not sold at the Chibuku taverns. The Chibuku beer is served in PET bottles at the taverns, but these are currently not able to be technically recycled by Arkay. Therefore, HDPE bottles will need to be brought to these taverns by customers specifically for recycling, as they are not sold on the premises.

State of the field

The plastic problem

Currently, over 280,000 tonnes of solid waste go uncollected in Malawi’s urban areas every year (Turpie et al. 2019). Plastic makes up approximately 10% of the total waste generated in Blantyre and currently no recycling is established at scale (Truss Group 2022). Both plastic production and consumption are increasing in Malawi and already outpacing any means of managing this influx of plastic (Griffin and Karasik 2022). Beverage bottles, bags, and food containers are culturally perceived as disposable, resulting in packaging being the main source of plastic leakage into the environment and a major cause of environmental and human health issues (OECD 2022).

On a global level, the United Nations Environment Assembly, UNEA 5.2, reached international consensus to develop a Global Plastic Treaty this year (United Nations 2022) and in Malawi, there has been a thin-plastic ban for bags less than 60 microns since 2019 (Turpie et al. 2019). However, enforcement of the thin-plastic ban is insufficient and plastic waste in general remains a growing problem.

The plastic solution?

Though the African Union set ambitious goals to recycle 50% of their waste by 2023, recent numbers show only 4% being diverted from landfill with plastic being only a fraction of that (United Nations Environment Programme 2018). Plastic recycling has been lauded as a waste management and economic opportunity for decades, so why is this “resource” still littering the planet?

Recycling solutions to the plastic-waste problem, many as a part of larger circular economy discussions, have been proposed; some - like bottle deposits in California or the Green Dot system in Germany - have been invested in and implemented (Andreasi Bassi et al. 2020). However, recycling remains low and there have not been solutions that fully quantify value creation (economic, environmental, technical, and social) across the entire value chain (Hahladakis, Iacovidou, and Gerassimidou 2020). There are many reasons why this is not commonly done: there are countless variables (plastic type, application, geographical or cultural factors), emphasis tends to be placed only on the economics or environmental aspects (independently), and the general inability to access data from a fragmented value chain (Hahladakis, Iacovidou, and Gerassimidou 2020).

The fragmented, linear plastic supply chain

Therefore, there is a need to zoom in and evaluate circular solutions on a level where variables are manageable. Circular economy solutions that work toward the triple bottom line (social, environmental, and economic sustainability) would be especially critical in Malawi, where waste management infrastructure is insufficient and inflation in food and energy prices is compounded by the de-valuation of the currency (the Malawian kwacha, MWK).

Arkay Plastics is a converter, operating at the beginning of the supply chain by obtaining raw materials and producing plastic products for brand owners. Chibuku Products, a brand owner, takes the plastic bottles produced by Arkay, fills them with beverages, labels the bottle, and distributes it to retail locations. End users, or customers of the Chibuku beverages, frequent the Chibuku taverns where the bottle collection will take place. The simpler network of actors in this research and partnership with those actors enables rare insight into data across the entire plastic value chain.

Goals of the thesis

The goal of this research is to evaluate the social, technical, and economic sustainability of a closed-loop plastic bottle recycling scheme in Malawi. To accomplish this goal, four research questions have been developed. Each research question is addressed in one work plan and will subsequently contribute to a single publication.

The main research questions:

1. What is the willingness to recycle HDPE bottles at Chibuku taverns?

2. What are the technical capabilities of Arkay to recycle HDPE bottles into new bottles for Chibuku?

3. What is the economic feasibility of the closed-loop recycling design for HDPE bottles?

Relevance to research in the institute and department

As a part of the Global Health Engineering group in D-MAVT at ETH Zurich, my research also focuses on developing context-specific solutions to safely manage waste in the Majority World. In particular, my PhD research aims to design and assess a plastic recycling scheme in a low-income country, holistically considering social, economic, and technical aspects in line with reverse logistics concepts.

The core building blocks of Global Health Engineering

My PhD work exemplifies the Global Health Engineering methodologies: engineering tools to develop recycling technology, social science to understand and adjust to the perceptions of people in Blantyre toward plastic, and economics to evaluate the financial sustainability of the bottle-to-bottle recycling scheme.

Detailed Work Plans

WP 1: Chibuku Taverns as drop-off collection points for plastic bottle recycling in Blantyre, Malawi

Background

The goal of this first work package is to gather data in order to design a context-specific collection scheme. This unique drop-off recycling scheme can draw on a better understanding of local perceptions and desires from focus group discussions and surveys, as well as learnings from the literature. Main aspects of the HDPE collection involve bringing HDPE Chibuku bottles to the taverns for recycling, incentive scheme (~5 - 10 MWK/ bottle), and plastic storage.

The main research question for work plan 1:

1. What is the willingness to participate in drop-off recycling of HDPE bottles (from the Chibuku Products drink Super Maheu) at Chibuku taverns?

In order to assess the willingness to recycle, this work package has three main objectives that are listed below. These objectives serve to understand the factors contributing to successful HDPE bottle collection at the Chibuku taverns: the physical set up of collection on-site, the managers of the taverns who will need to help coordinate collection, and the Chibuku customers that would need to bring bottles to the taverns to recycle.

Work Plan 1: Objectives, methodologies, and outputs

Objective	Method	Variables	Results & Relevance
Determine the physical capability of each Chibuku tavern to serve as a collection point for plastic bottles	Physical evaluation Photos	Covered area (m2) Premises area (m2) Location (coordinates) Electricity (no/ yes/ reliability) Water (no/ yes/ reliability) Tavern entry points (number, height, width) Loading area (m2) Distance from vehicle access route to loading area (m)	Baseline assessment that informs how to equip a commercial site to facilitate plastic bottle recycling
Evaluate the perception of the tavern mamas toward plastic consumption and receptivity toward on-site plastic collection	Focus group discussion N = 4	Current practices for plastic waste management Willingness to receive plastic Willingness to store plastic on-site Willingness to track/ accept additional administrative tasks Willingness to coordinate recycling compensation Desired payment in return	Their perception of plastic and the capacity for coordinating the recycling tasks could help infer the operational likelihood of bottle recycling
Survey customers and their receptivity to participate in plastic bottle recycling	Questionnaire N = 400 (100 customers/ tavern)	Frequency of visits Socioeconomic data Willingness to return Willingness to clean bottles before return Willingness to compress Preferences on method of payment	This data can help optimise the design of the recycling system for a high quantity (capture rate) and quality (homogenous, clean plastic) of recycled bottles

Methodology

A mixed-method approach was chosen that includes physical assessment, focus group discussions with tavern mamas, and customer surveys.

Physical assessment

Each of the taverns in Blantyre will be observed in order to determine possible set ups for bottle collection. The main focus of this assessment is to locate areas where bottles can be stored until they are transported to the industrial site. It is important that the bottle collection does not cause major disruption to commercial activity at the taverns. Additionally, this assessment is a way to become familiarised with the different taverns in order to prepare for the surveys and focus group discussions. Data from the physical assessment will be in the form of notes and pictures.

Focus group discussions with tavern mamas

The Chibuku tavern mamas are keystones to the logistical success of bottle collection, since they are trusted by Chibuku management and are keystones in tavern operation and culture. Therefore, focus group discussion was chosen to allow for in-depth expression and collective views (Refsgaard and Magnussen 2009) from these purposefully chosen experts on the Chibuku tavern environment. This qualitative method obtains social understanding of issues in a cost- and time-efficient way. It is particularly helpful in the exploratory phase of this project (O.Nyumba et al. 2018), since there is no previous research to draw from on plastic recycling schemes in Malawi.

During the focus group discussion, it is important to assess the knowledge of and attitude toward plastic recycling. The focus group discussion could deduce impressions of their willingness to help organise plastic collection at the tavern and inform decisions on the collection area or form of compensation.

At least one focus group discussion will take place after the results from the physical assessment and another after the results from customer surveys. An iterative approach will be used to determine the need for additional discussions with the tavern mamas. Best practices from (O.Nyumba et al. 2018) will be taken into consideration when organising focus group discussions to mitigate common risks for this method. N = 4 for the group size of the discussions, which includes the tavern mama from each Chibuku tavern located in Blantyre.

Surveys with Chibuku customers

Additionally, a survey of Chibuku customers will be conducted to understand their willingness to bring Chibuku’s plastic beverage bottles to the taverns for recycling. The survey will be a combination of open- and closed-ended questions administered by one research assistant in Chichewa or English (participant dictates language preference).

This cross-sectional study will randomly sample 140 customers at each tavern for a total of N = 560 between the four taverns. Every third customer will be approached and the survey will be administered until 10 customers who drink Super Maheu have completed the survey in the designated time period. Day time is considered before 5pm and nighttime after 5pm. The different period of the day will be assessed once on each day of the week (Monday through Sunday) to get a diverse target audience. Answers will be collected in real-time using a tablet and Kobo Toolbox survey software.

The survey questions will be designed after the physical assessment and first focus group discussion.

Data analysis

The statistical software RStudio will be used for data cleaning and analysis. Data cleaning will be performed using the tidyverse package. Data analysis and visualisation will be conducted using the dplyer and ggplot packages. R-code as well as raw and tidied data for this study will be available in a public repository on GitHub.

Expected outcomes

• Blueprint and ammenities of each of the four Chibuku taverns in Blantyre

• Qualitative assessment of the willingness to recycle by tavern mamas

• Qualitative assessment of willingness to recycle by Chibuku customers

Limitations and risks

Potential risks include cultural barriers as a foreigner and female in the Chibuku taverns. Four research assistants will be hired to conduct surveys at each tavern in Blantyre.

Timeline

The surveys and focus group discussions will take place within 6 months in 2023.

WP 2: Closed-loop plastic bottle recycling pilot in Blantyre, Malawi

Introduction

The main focus of this work is to design a pilot for closed-loop HDPE bottle recycling in Blantyre and evaluate its economic and environmental sustainability. The pilot design will draw on concepts from reverse logistics and data from the first work package. Reverse logistics is a concept in supply chain management that describes the return of a product back to the supplier for better disposal after use (Waqas et al. 2018). The economic benefits are often a main focus in reverse logistics plans, but can include other benefits such as environmental sustainability of the company as well.

The pilot design will be based on an effort to minimise the most commonly cited barriers to plastic recycling, such as high costs of collection, sorting, and transport (Mihai et al. 2022). For example, in order to minimise transport costs, the most efficient delivery routes passing near the taverns will be identified that take advantage of emptied Chibuku trucks returning from a delivery. These empty trucks can pick up recycled bottles from the taverns without deviating drastically from standard delivery routes or incurring much additional fuel cost. Such cost-minimising factors across the circular plastic flow below facilitates the move toward economically recyclable plastic.

Simplified schematic of proposed circular plastic recycling flow

Materials and Methods

This work builds on the data from the first work package in order to develop and evaluate various design alternatives for a 1-year pilot for closed-loop HDPE Chibuku bottle recycling. For example, if results from the customer surveys show a high willingness to clean the bottles prior to returning them to the taverns for recycling, then the pilot design may not require additional purchase of equipment for bottle washing.

Using life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) guidelines provided by Stanford University, the design alternatives that include bottle recycling will be compared to a status quo base case, where there is no bottle recycling. Cost estimates for alternatives with varying degrees of recycling will be evaluated for the near-term (0-5 years) and long-term (6+ years).

The pilot design that incurs the fewest costs (most economically viable option) will be chosen for implementation in 2024. The metrics listed in the table below will be collected for the 1-year pilot and all converted to the units of money per month (Malawian kwacha, MWK/ month) for comparison. The data will be analysed in RStudio according to the model put forth in Bening, Kahlert, and Asiedu (2022): costs, revenue, and processing volumes are used to generate earnings for each group, total costs along the value chain, and parameter sensitivity.

Metrics	Unit	Relevance	Data type
Labour	MWK/hr	Contributes to business costs	Secondary data from company
Material	MWK/kg	Contributes to business costs	Secondary data from company
Transportation	MWK/km	Contributes to business costs	Primary data from GPS tracking; Secondary data from company
Utilities	MWK/L (water) MWK/kWh (electricity) MWK/m3 (gas)	Contributes to business costs	Secondary data from company
Maintenance	MWK/month	Contributes to business costs	Secondary data from company
Overhead (e.g. for training)	MWK/month	Contributes to business costs	Secondary data from company
Rent	MWK/month	Contributes to business costs	Secondary data from company
Insurance	MWK/month	Contributes to business costs	Secondary data from company
Taxes	MWK/year	Contributes to business costs	Secondary data from company
Sales of Super Maheu	piece	Contributes to business revenue	Secondary data from company
Price of Super Maheu	MWK/piece	Contributes to business revenue	Primary data from market study; Secondary data from company
rHDPE collection incentive	MWK/bottle	Contributes to business costs; customer revenue	Primary data (set price)
rHDPE plastic price	MWK/kg	Contributes to Chibuku revenue; Arkay costs	Primary data (set price)
Total rHDPE	number of bottles; kg	Contributes to Chibuku revenue; Arkay costs	Primary data (number of bottles from taverns and weight from Arkay)

Expected outcomes

• A context-specific closed-loop recycling design for incetivised HDPE bottle collection at Chibuku taverns will be developed and implemented

• Results will give an indication of the environmental (volume of plastic diverted from landfill/ leakage) and economic (costs and revenues for the different actors in the value chain) sustainability of the recycling scheme

• Recommendations regarding economies of scale (based on current volumes, potential capacity, and associated costs) can be deduced for future projects

Limitations and risks

Though the pilot will involve a long planning and preparation stage, there are still risks to implementation when the research depends on cooperation with industrial partners. It is assumed that Chibuku (the main, motivated partner for the recycling project) is large enough to have purchasing power to influence Arkay to cooperate, which can be a source of resistance (Ravi and Shankar 2005). Maintaining close relationships, frequent communication, and emphasis of the benefits to the partners will be done to mitigate these risks.

Timeline

The closed-loop recycling pilot will run for one year. Modeling and analysis will take six months.

WP 3: Technical assessment of HDPE bottles with recycled content

Introduction

The goal of this work is to use a mixed-method approach to assess the technical capabilities of Arkay to recycle HDPE bottles for Chibuku, including equipment capacity and quality assurance of the recycled HDPE (rHDPE) bottles. As Arkay will only accept HDPE for recycling, this will be the plastic type analysed in this work, but there could be potential to expand to PET in the future. HDPE is a plastic type that is relatively easy to recycle (Mihai et al. 2022) and the recycling process is made easier in this situation since the bottles have an aluminum pull-tab lid, as opposed to a plastic cap that could contaminate the recycling stream.

Super Maheu drink in a white HDPE bottle with aluminum lid

The objectives of this work package are:

• Determine the recycling capabilities of Arkay Plastics in Malawi (processing volumes, equipment,

• Evaluate how the technical properties of the bottles change after using post-consumer recycled HDPE (in the context of this closed-loop system)

Materials and Methods

Structured questionnaire with open-ended questions

In order to assess Arkay’s technical capabilities and potential for recycling, an interview will be conducted with an Operations manager. The following provides guiding questions adapted from Lai et al. (2016):

• How long has the business been running?
• How long have you been recycling? If so, which plastic types?
• What countries do you distribute your products to?
• What are the main challenges of the business (before and after de-valuation of MWK)?
• Do you deal with mixed waste (e.g. cap and bottle are different plastic types)? If so, how do you deal with it?
• How much material do you process per day?
• Are you operating at full capacity?
• How do you reach possible customers?
• What are the main challenges with sales?
• What are the main issues with recycling collection?
• What are the main issues with processing recycled plastic?
• Which plastics are easier to recycle than others?
• What is the demand for recycled plastic materials?
• Do you have partnerships for collection of plastic waste?
• Is there competition for collected plastic waste?
• Is there any governmental support for plastic recycling?
• How would you improve recycling in Malawi?
• What support would you need to improve recycling capabilities?

Laboratory Assessment

In order to assess the differences in properties between the HDPE bottles produced with and without recycled material, general mechanical and analytical testing will be conducted. The property tested, international organisation for standardisation (ISO) number, instrument, and purpose of test are listed in the table below.

Summary of proposed laboratory testing

Property (Standard)	Instrument	Purpose
Melt temperature Glass transition temperature (ISO 11357)	Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC)	These are important for designing process parameters for the converter (Arkay)
Moisture content/ molecular weight (ISO 15512)	Analytical balance, immersion vessel, thermometer, and sinker (for a sample with a specific gravity less than 1.00)	Moisture content increases and molecular weight decreases with recycling, which causes mechanical properties to decrease. This is important for designing process parameters for the converter (Arkay)
Tensile strength Elongation at break (ISO 527-1)	Tensile tester (e.g. Instron)	This is a mechanical property that details the sample’s resistance to deformation or breaking under tension and should adhere to industry standards
Impact behaviour (ISO 180)	IZOD Impact	This is a mechanical property that determines a material’s toughness under impact conditions and should adhere to industry standards
Shelf-life (ISO 16779)	Equipment to simulate any storage conditions expected to be encountered by product (e.g. refrigeration)	Since the product will be consumed, it is important to assess whether there are any sensory attribute changes with recycled plastic content. This should be in line with and informed by Chibuku’s requirements
Color (ASTM D1729, E1499)	Colorimeter or visual assessment	Recycled plastics can have more variability in color and it is important to ensure that the level of discoloration is acceptable and won’t cause negative customer perception

If tests cannot be performed in Malawi, then Inspire AG in Switzerland will be approached for access to their testing equipment (ETH Zurich, D-MAVT affiliation). If testing on recycled plastic flakes or pellets is not able to be performed in Malawi, InnoPlastics in Switzerland will be approached for access to their analytical equipment (affiliation with ETH Zurich, EMPA). N = 5 for each sample (at least triplicate, if material is limited) for each test to provide statistical significance (p < 0.05). The control will be a HDPE Chibuku bottle with no recycled content.

Expected outcomes

1. Determine Arkay’s recycling capacity and potential for recycling in the future (e.g. efficiency for HDPE recycling or expansion to PET recycling)

2. Understand how the rHDPE bottles compare to 100% virgin HDPE bottles over the expected shelf life of the product to know if the physical and chemical resilience meets quality assurance standards

3. Understand how the rHDPE bottles compare with each time it is recycled in order to know if there is a point at which bottles should no longer be recycled

Limitations and risks

The main risks for this work are access to the appropriate laboratory testing equipment and accuracy of the data from the interview with Arkay.

Timeline

The interview and laboratory tests can be done during the pilot year, since it is a cross-sectional study. While the work does not depend on pilot completion to begin, getting access to the lab equipment could cause a delay. The work can be done in six months, including scheduling and conducting the interview with Arkay, as well as laboratory testing of the plastic bottle samples.

PhD Timeline

Milestones

Task	Deadline
Visual assessment of Chibuku taverns for on-site collection setup	06/2023
Focus group discussions with tavern mamas to inform collection design	06/2023
Surveys with Chibuku customers to inform collection incentives	06/2023
Arkay Plastics site visit to prepare for Chibuku bottle recycling	06/2023
GPS device installation in Chibuku trucks to measure transport distance	12/2023
Installation of bottle collection equipment at Chibuku taverns	12/2023
Contribution to industrial partners’ annual report	12/2023
Shared academic output (first journal publication)	06/2024
Completion of 1-year bottle recycling pilot	12/2024
Contribution to industrial partners’ annual report	12/2024
Shared academic output (second journal publication)	06/2025
Shared academic output (third journal publication)	02/2026
Thesis defense	02/2026

Research data management plan

The following data management plan is taken from the Template for the SNSF Data Management Plan by the ETH Library (Data Management Plan SNSF). The same template is used in the rest of the Global Health Engineering group for Data Management. This plan will serve as guidance during the present work and be updated as needs arise.

Institution

ETH Zurich

Responsibilties

Principal Researcher/ Data Management Plan Contact: Lin Boynton, lboynton@ethz.ch

Chair of Global Health Engineering: Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Tilley, tilleye@ethz.ch

Data Steward: Lars Schöbitz, lschoebitz@ethz.ch

1. Data collection and documentation

1.1 What data will you collect, observe, generate or re-use?

Data types

The following types of data will be produced in this research project:

1. Personal, anonymized data (age, gender, etc) of survey and focus group participants
2. Survey data collected from Chibuku customers, Chibuku employees, and sector professionals without personal details, but categorization of stakeholder types (NGO, industry, etc)
3. Data on plastic properties collected from laboratory experiments

The origins of third-party data can be multiple, including data from NGOs, Government, and researchers at the university. The research project supports individuals in creating curated data in a consistent data structure. The curated data, including documentation and metadata will be published using the platforms GitHub and Zenodo data repository. This published and processed data will then be re-used by the research team to prepare meta-analysis about the openly published data.

Data produced in this project will be exclusively exported and stored in CSV file format. Single files will likely not exceed a file size of 50 megabytes (e.g. 25 columns, 100’000 rows).

1.2 How will the data be collected, observed or generated?

The subjects of data collection (persons) will be fully informed about the types of data that is collected. Data obtained during focus group discussions, surveys, and interviews will be collected with informed consent and participants are informed about further use of the data. They will be informed about their rights on information, data deletion and data correction.

File organisation

The various data types will be organised following established file naming conventions for folders and files:

• avoid capital letters
• avoid empty spaces
• use the dash “-” to connect strings in file and folder names
• use the English language
• avoid special characters
• if applicable, use ISO 8601 date format where applicable
• if applicable, place date at the beginning of the name

All data will be stored in folders (repositories) using the git version control system for tracking of changes. Each type of data will be stored in an individual repository, which follows a (project) template structure to standardize the location of raw data, processed data, and metadata. The following is an example directory tree of a repository for data:

fs::dir_tree(recurse = 1)

.
├── 00-main-report.docx
├── 00-main-report.html
├── 00-main-report.pdf
├── 00-main-report.qmd
├── 00-main-report.rmarkdown
├── 01-abstract.qmd
├── 02-00-introduction.html
├── 02-00-introduction.qmd
├── 02-00-introduction_files
│   └── libs
├── 02-01-state-of-field.html
├── 02-01-state-of-field.qmd
├── 02-01-state-of-field_files
│   └── libs
├── 02-02-problem-statement.qmd
├── 02-03-goals.qmd
├── 02-04-department-relevance.html
├── 02-04-department-relevance.qmd
├── 02-04-department-relevance_files
│   └── libs
├── 02-05-progress-to-date.qmd
├── 03-01-work-plan.docx
├── 03-01-work-plan.html
├── 03-01-work-plan.pdf
├── 03-01-work-plan.qmd
├── 03-01-work-plan_files
│   └── libs
├── 03-02-work-plan.html
├── 03-02-work-plan.qmd
├── 03-02-work-plan_files
│   └── libs
├── 03-03-work-plan.html
├── 03-03-work-plan.qmd
├── 03-03-work-plan_files
│   └── libs
├── 03-04-work-plan.qmd
├── 03-05-work-plan.qmd
├── 03-06-work-plan.qmd
├── 04-rdm-plan.qmd
├── 05-timeline.qmd
├── 06-student-ops.qmd
├── CITATION.cff
├── CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
├── custom-reference-doc.docx
├── data
│   ├── raw_data
│   ├── README.md
│   └── tidy_data
├── dmp-sor4d-main
│   ├── demp-sor4d.Rproj
│   ├── LICENSE.md
│   ├── README.md
│   └── template
├── dmp-sor4d.qmd
├── images
│   ├── ghe-box.gif
│   ├── ghe-box.png
│   ├── paste-0E00C2DC.png
│   ├── paste-242DE541.png
│   ├── paste-54323C04.png
│   ├── paste-71EE30B6.png
│   ├── paste-91B65F03.png
│   └── paste-D36C5D52.png
├── LICENSE.md
├── README.md
├── README.qmd
├── references.bib
├── research-project-template.Rproj
├── src
│   └── 01-tidy-raw-data.R
└── timeline.png

Each folder contains a README file in .md file format, which describes the content of the folder. The same directory structure and principles are used throughout all projects at the research group.

1.3 What documentation and metadata will you provide with the data?

General human-readable metadata is stored in the README file that is contained in the /metadata folder, as shown in the directory tree above. It is a template adapted from a guide shared by Cornell University and recommended for use by ETH Library under Guidance and instructions for the ETH Zurich DMP template - Section 1: Data collection and documentation - 1.3 What documentation and metadata will you provide with the data? - Supporting resources.

A machine-readable CITATION.cff following the Citation File Format (CFF) Standard will be used to document authors and contributors names and ORCID ID.

In addition to the human readable README with a description of the data, a codebook describes the variables and values, following general metadata standards (e.g. schema.org metadata standards):

variable_name	description
directory	the directory name the file is stored in (raw-data, derived-data)
file_name	the name of the input data file
variable_name	the name of measured variable
variable_type	the type of measured variable (categorical, numeric)
variable_values	if categorical, all levels. if numeric, the range
description	a written description of what that measured variable is
unit	the units the variable was measured in

The research project aims at identifying machine-readable metadata standards that could be universally applicable to the unpublished third-party data that the projects aims at publishing openly.

Software for processing data will exclusive rely on the R statistical programming software. Cloud-computing infrastructure (i.e. RStudio Cloud) will be used to provide the users with the RStudio IDE. Versions of R and used R packages will be standardized and documented using the R package renv.

2. Ethics, legal and security issues

2.1 How will ethical issues be addressed and handled?

For sensitive/personal data collected as part of surveys and training, the necessary ethical authorizations will be obtained from the competent ethics committee. Raw data that contains confidential/sensitive personal data will be stored solely on ETH servers (Network Attached Storage, GitLab). Only the Principal Researcher, Chair of the Group, and the Data Steward (internal research group employee) will be granted access to the raw data. This raw data will be collected using personal consent agreements. These agreements will clarify further use of the raw data. If at all, the raw data will be published fully anonymized and without unique identifiers that could link one data table to another. More likely, this data will only be published in an aggregated formats and as data underlying tables and figures in research products.

Please check if your project involves data relating to (in bold) one of the following ethical issues:

Yes, human participants (in this case, human participation in non-medical research, e.g. surveys, observations, tracking the location of people)

2.2 How will data access and security be managed?

The main concern regarding data security is the storage of personal data that may attribute data to specific persons. All personal data will be anonymized, however, unique identifiers will be created to link individual data tables. Such sensitive data will only be accessible by the Principle Researcher, chair of the research group and the Data Steward (internal research group employee). No sensitive/personal data will be stored in cloud service external to ETH Zurich.

2.3 How will you handle copyright and Intellectual Property Rights issues?

All data that is non-sensitive and generated as part of the research project will be released under CC0 license. For third-party data, that is re-used and published in a processed format, the aim is to apply at least CC BY 4.0 license.

The source code for the processing of data will be released under permissive licenses (e.g. MIT License).

3. Data storage and preservation

3.1 How will your data be stored and backed-up during the research?

No data will be stored solely on the laptop of a researcher.

All data will be stored using git version control with at least one remote repository:

1. GitLab for sensitive data
2. GitHub for non-sensitive data

3.2 What is your data preservation plan?

All generated data that is published openly using the long-term archiving service Zenodo will be stored for an unlimited time period. Sensitive data that is stored on institutional infrastructure (e.g. Network Attached Storage) will be archived and stored for 10 years.

All re-used third-party data with high quality metadata will be stored using long-term archiving service Zenodo an unlimited time period.

At the end of the project, the Data Steward will remain responsible for metadata improvement, integrity check and measured to ensure accessibility.

4. Data sharing and reuse

4.1 How and where will the data be shared?

The GitHub Zenodo integration will be used for sharing of data. This includes all generated data and data underlying reports and publications.

4.2 Are there any necessary limitations to protect sensitive data?

All non-sensitive data will be published prior to the publication of research products. Data will be treated as a product in itself. Sensitive data will not be published at any time, but only as aggregated data underlying research products and the time of publication. If sensitive data can be sufficiently anonymized, we will publish it alongside the derived aggregated data. To ensure computational reproducibility, we will also publish the scripts that contain programming code which reproduce findings from the given raw data.

4.3 All digital repositories I will choose are conform to the FAIR Data Principles

yes

4.4 I will choose digital repositories maintained by a non-profit organisation

yes

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