waste(null)| Warming Planet, Cool Ideas
Project Details
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The Challenge | Warming Planet, Cool Ideas
Reward Greenly!
Sorting your waste has never been so fun! We created an app that is connected to a smart bin and counts the amount of waste you recycle and it transforms them in points that feed a customizable plant in your app. You can also keep up to date with news!
TEAM: WASTE(NULL)
Why do we recycle?
Mass production of plastic, which began six decades ago, has created 8.3 billion metric tons.
Of this 8.3 billion metric tons, 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste. Of that, only nine percent has been recycled. The vast majority of it ends up in the oceans, damaging the ecosystems and destroying biodiversity. The rest is being burned. Studies have shown that recycling plastic waste saves more energy, because it reduces the need to extract fossil fuel and process it into new plastic, than burning it.
Why is burning plastic waste a problem?
On the website of MIT, School of engineer, we can see why burning plastic is a problem: “When plastic is burned, it releases dangerous chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, dioxins, furans and heavy metals, as well as particulates. These emissions are known to cause respiratory ailments and stress human immune systems, and they’re potentially carcinogenic.”
Plastic is a petroleum-based material, and when burned it’s like any other fossil fuel: it contributes to climate pollution. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, burning plastics is the worst possible end-of-life management approach for plastics from a climate perspective.
Why is our prototype helpful?
“On Earth, human activities are changing the natural greenhouse. Over the last century burning of fossil fuels has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).”
Some of the effects of climate change are:
- global temperature rise: based on the data collected by Nasa the Earth temperature has already increased by 0.9 degrees Celsius;
- shrinking ice sheets: data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost 286 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 127 billion tons of ice per year. The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade;
- glacial retreat: glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world, including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa;
- sea level rise: global sea level rose about 8 inches in the last centuries and it’s accelerating slightly every year;
With our prototype we wanted to increase the recycling of plastic and to reduce the amount of plastic that is burned and that ends up in the ocean.
We also wanted to involve more people by making recycling fun and by giving a reward to those who participate.
How does it work?
We created a bin that can recognize the different types of waste through an optic system able to be updated automatically thanks to the history of the system. This smart bin will help you to understand how to do a proper recycling. Imagine that you have a plastic bottle to recycle, if you put it on top of the plastic bin, this will open and the bottle will fall in. However, if you put it on the wrong bin, it won’t open and on a screen on the top of the bin you will see which one is the right place to put the bottle.
To motivate people to recycle their waste, we have thought about a rewarding system. Based on how much waste you recycle you will accumulate points. These points will be available only for those who have downloaded a free app, the other users will still be able to use the bin, but they won’t receive any reward.
Your score will be represented by a plant, in the app, that is growing as you accumulate points by recycling. When you reach a certain level, you will receive some money and you will have the chance to keep it or donate it to an environmental non-profit organization of your choice.
To the youngest involvement
To stimulate the youngest to get involved and participate in the recycling, we decided to treat the app as a game. On the app you could “cultivate” a plant, that will grow as you continue to recycle. If you choose to donate the money you earned recycling instead of keeping it you will even have the chance to get some gadgets to take care of your plant. The app will be connected to your contacts, it will create a more challenging environment.
This is a fun way to educate and involve the youngest on recycling, giving them the possibility to help the environment.
Plus, to raise awareness through the youngest, we created a home page that links to the latest news about environment and NASA ones.
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