TrashAway

About the team

We are team Renesan, a team of NUS students who were connected through friends of friends! Jing Ru is a Product Designer and Jun Hong, Remus, Vijay, and Zechary are all software developers.
Fun fact: Renesan is an AI-generated name! 😋

Justification: Renesan is derived from the Latin word “renasci,” which means “to be reborn or renewed.” The name Renesan is fitting for a business that encourages recycling as it implies the idea of giving new life to old materials. It’s also a mash-up of recycling/environment related keywords (Renewable + Sanitation = Renesan)

Team members: Chiam Jing Ru, Chen Jun Hong, Remus Kwan, N Vijay Narayanan, Zechary Au Jun Wen

Problem Statement

Singaporeans who already practice recycling want a convenient way to check if an item is recyclable and where they can recycle items. NEA figures show that over half of Singaporeans engage in recycling practices but lack exhaustive knowledge of what can be recycled or how to dispose of the recyclables properly.

Results from our user survey validate these figures - 65.3% of respondents recycle regularly/occasionally. When asked why they recycle, 83.7% indicated environmental impact. Our survey also helped us identify two main pain points Singaporeans encounter when recycling: they find it hard to locate recycling bins while on the go and are unsure of what can be recycled.

Proposed Solution

We are building a website called TrashAway, which has the following features:

1. Item search/scanner
   • Tells user if the item is recyclable
   • Includes instructions on how to prepare the item for recycling
   • “Find nearest recycling bin” CTA button that leads to the bin locator feature
2. Recycling bin locator
   • The nearest recycling bins are displayed in a list, ordered based on proximity to the user
   • Users can filter recycling bins by what categories of recyclables they accept
3. Crowdsourcing feature to improve the accuracy of our item scanner & bin location dataset
   • User can report inaccurate item scan results
   • User can report unlisted recycling bins