The HSRW in Lyon: Where rubbish bins sing and ideas shine
Green glass bottles sparkle in the autumn light, the Saône flows quietly past the quay walls. Anyone who throws an empty bottle into a colourful bin here these days will suddenly hear a sound. Not a shrill alarm, but a playful note, a brief flash of light. A little nudge – and perhaps the beginning of a new habit.
This is one of the award-winning ideas that emerged in mid-October during the Green Nudge Week 2025 at the Université Catholique de Lyon (UCLy). From October 13 to 17, 21 students from six countries, including a delegation from the Faculty of Life Sciences at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences (HSRW), explored the city as a laboratory for sustainable behavior—accompanied by lecturers from UCLy/ESQESE and in cooperation with the tourism brand ONLYLYON. The assignment: to design concrete, easily implementable "Green Nudges" for more responsible urban and city tourism.
The week followed a dense rhythm: introductions to behavioral economics and the concept of nudging, an urban "Jeu de piste" (treasure hunt), on-site observations, interviews with users, graphic fine-tuning, and a final pitch where six international teams presented their prototypes. The focus was on issues pressing in Lyon: safe paths for distracted pedestrians in the smartphone age, clean glass recycling in public spaces, the chaos around e-scooter parking areas, protection of local fauna, and the question of how to stimulate a desire for local products with short supply chains.
"The international collaboration was a new experience: so many different people, cultures, and perspectives led to exciting discussions and a lot of new viewpoints," report HSRW students Gesa Günther and Olga Cazacou. And they add perhaps the most important sentence of such a week: "Learned a lot, laughed a lot, and grew quite fond of Lyon."
Learning in the city, not just about the city
In the end, all six working groups presented proposals that not only looked good but could also work in everyday life. Three of them were awarded prizes. Among the winning concepts: the project by Bioengineering student Suzan Al-Jaroudi, whose team focused on the bottles along the Saône:
"During the project week at UCly University in Lyon, our team developed an environmental initiative to address the issue of bottle litter along the Saône River. Based on our field observations, we designed an interactive nudge: colorful recycling bins that light up and play musical notes when a bottle is deposited. The idea is to make recycling more visible, playful, and engaging for both locals and tourists, while strengthening their attachment to the river and the city. The project was very enriching on both an academic and cultural level, and we are proud that it was awarded first place. The experience was incredibly rewarding, combining creativity, teamwork, and sustainability.“
The other two working groups involving HSRW students also received awards. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Rudolf Schumachers, head of the Quality, Environment, Safety, and Hygiene degree program, was on-site for the last two days: What sounded like a competition felt more like a marketplace of ideas many small, clever interventions instead of one big solution.
Nudging is the art of steering decisions in a more sustainable direction without coercion—through visibility, convenience, or a small game. In a city like Lyon, which thrives on its river, on enjoyment, and on a constant stream of visitors, rigid prohibitions are often blunt tools. Gentle nudges work where they connect with life: on a walk along the water, on the impulse to pull out a smartphone, on the question of where to park a scooter.
The Green Nudge Week showed how such impulses are created: by walking, observing, asking, and by building and testing together. The city responds when you listen to it and sometimes it responds with music from a trash bin. For the HSRW students, the exchange in Lyon was a rehearsal space for international cooperation, applied sustainability, and a promise of continuation: A return visit by the French students to HSRW is firmly planned for the end of March 2026. Then the roles will be swapped, and the scene will change. But the tone will likely remain the same: friendly, inviting a nudge in the right direction.