As we all know, bottled water is popular all around the world thanks to its convenience in daily life. Every second, 591 thousand bottled waters are consumed. However, according to several research, most of these bottles are not empty when disposal, which leads to the astonishing fact that approximately 1 million gallons of water is wasted annually. One interesting relation that might be explored in the solution could be: Does the physical design of the water bottle affect disposal behavior? This came through observation - the way different bottle designs affect grip comfort and ease of squeezing, which might impact consumers' ability and willingness to empty their bottles before disposal. The purpose of this essay is to have an in-depth exploration on how physical design could contribute to reducing wasted unused water and what kind of design has the best effect. This possible relation should be cared about, because this crosses the paths of behavioral psychology, industrial design, and environmental science. This relationship will help packaging designers and environmental scholars find ways to reduce water waste and enhance methodologies of recycling.

To begin with, the shape of a bottle can have a psychological impact on people's desire to drink water. According to Alexandra’s study in 2018, packaging design can implicitly convey important information about the food or drink it contains. The shape of the bottle can affect people's judgment of its capacity. (Festila & Chrysochou, pp. 461–476) For example, a short bottle with a big diameter leaves the impression of having a larger capacity, while a tall bottle with a small diameter makes consumers believe it contains fewer things. When the bottle capacity is the same, people may subconsciously believe that they can get more water from a short and chubby bottle because its visual effect is more like a drop of water, thereby stimulating their desire to drink. Secondly, the design of the bottle's appearance is not limited to a simple plastic bottle. Equipping the bottle with a shoulder strap makes people feel they can free their hands and are more willing to carry the bottled water, increasing the frequency of drinking water.

Let’s take one step further from functional design - art can also influence human beings’ drinking behaviors, as research has shown. Appetite can either be increased or decreased by the color of the food they eat. Bottles of different colors create different psychological emotions and associations that will influence the act of drinking water. (Karnal) Moreover, blue is usually taken to be the sign of serenity and coolness; therefore, blue bottles have the effect of refreshment visually, just as one feels water with a cooler temperature, hence increasing one's urge to drink water. Green bottles create a feeling of health and nature, possibly reminding people of springs full of water in nature, hence increasing one's urge to drink water. This is because of its high visual shock, which may attract people's eyes, raise their interest, and provoke a need to participate in encouraging them to drink water. Therefore, a proper design in bottle color is suggested to remind people to drink more water. Apart from issues concerning color, the inclusion of interesting things in the bottle, especially for children and young individuals, is helpful in promoting the drinking of water. People will love the bottle much more and be more willing to use the bottle to drink water with the beautiful and attractive patterns or ornaments on the bottle, such as cartoon characters, animal shapes, and popular factors. (Chenavaz & Eynan, pp. 676-682.) Besides, the design of the bottle also reflects the bottle's pleasure. An example is mineral water, which is a non-sport drink, though in its packaging, it has been prepared with a sport nozzle. This allows those people who do not drink sport drinks to have a feeling when drinking water through a sport nozzle. This encourages people to increase the frequency of drinking water and also to finish up the contents in the bottle before throwing the bottle.

Based on a good psychological impact, improvement of personal experience would have great effect in affecting disposal behavior. Products designed according to ergonomics usually better adapt to the natural structure of the human body and improve product comfort level. If the appearance design of mineral water bottles conforms to ergonomic principles, it will give people a better hand feeling of the bottle, such as making the bottle much cushier to grip, thus people will increase the number of times they pick up the bottle to drink water. Adding some concave and convex textures or curved designs to the bottle body can fit the human hands’ natural structure better, reduce the risk of the bottle slipping off the hand, and thus avoid the risk of bottle being thrown away before drinking up. The design of the bottle opening is also very important. The size and structure of the bottle opening plays a very important and decisive role in the first impression of drinking water from it. A bigger diameter opening allows more water to flow quickly, along with a higher volume that can be very useful for quick drinking but promotes a higher probability of spilling on clothes, if water is not well managed. The smaller the bottle's mouth, the easier the bottle will regulate water. For people who are super thirsty and want to drink tons of water, the water's flow rate might run considerably slower. Specially designed bottle openings, like nipple-like and straw-like, which are developed especially to suit the needs of different categories of individuals, are also available. These designs are more 'lip-friendly', hence encouraging the tendency to drink water more often.

What’s more, Famous economist Thorstein Veblen argued that wealthy individuals often consume highly conspicuous goods and services in order to advertise their wealth, thereby achieving greater social status. (Tosi, pp. 3878-3882) The goods’ appearance design is the most important factor that makes it stand out. I believe that by improving the appearance design of mineral water bottles to make them look more distinctive, mineral water can be added value. According to the Veblen effect we can see that a product labeled at a higher price can create a conspicuous consumption mentality among consumers, which encourages them to drink the bottle of water more times instead of taking a few sips and abandoning it. (Wu, pp. 507-511) From the perspective of consumer psychology, improving the appearance design of bottles can encourage people to drink water before throwing them away.

To sum up, research above shows strong supporting evidence that the link between design of water bottles and the disposal behavior has high probability to be true, by showing physical design influences psychological comfort, which affects drinking desire and frequency, together with improved user experience leads to more complete consumption, ultimately resulting in less water waste during disposal. This exploration proved that it is meaningful to be explored in the next assignment because by implementing a simple change, the amount of wasted water might be greatly reduced, making a significant impact on environmental protection. Future studies are needed to explore more about specifically what kind of design has the best effect while striking a balance between cost and effectiveness.