Pfree

Pfree is an android application that motivates users to maintain public hygiene by rewarding them every time they litter their waste in the dustbin instead of in the road/drain.

Our solution/product is an android application named Pfree. Pfree is a software solution. All that is needed is to download the app from the play store. 
Whenever anyone notices dry plastic waste like wrappers, plastic bottles, or polythenes in places other than dustbins, they need to open the app.
Pfree will show the user's current location, and the location of dustbins (government-made) present nearby.
The user needs to pick up the plastic item, go within the 5 Meter radius ( geofence ) of the dustbin, which allows the user to scan the barcode through our app and then throw it into the dustbin.
Plastic wrappers ( chips/chocolate wrappers) are BOPP-type plastic that is nonrecyclable, non-reusable and the only option is proper disposal.
After every successful scan, the user will have a surprise reward waiting! (in cash or coupons).
The more a user scans, the more profit they will get. This reward system ensures that the audience is engaging consistently in cleanliness activities. Also, we have a community feature where users of a locality can communicate/chat through pfree and plan cleaning events, report illegal dumps, etc.

Each year nearly 1.2 Million tonnes of plastic end up in land fill and around 0.6 Million tonnes of plastic end up in ocean and surprisingly majority of the plastic that end up in landfills and oceans came from littering plastic in public. But why people litter in public places

1.) Herd mentality - if other people are throwing in the road so can I

2.) Lack of motivation - there is no motivating factor that pushed the user to go to the dustbin when he can just throw plastic anywhere

3.) Habit of unhygienic - Indian do have the habit of unhygienic, so we need to change it too

4.) Lack of awareness regarding environmental issues.

5.) No community – No proper community to conduct cleaning campaign report illegal dumps, pressure the municipality or the local government.

No matter how many law or provision we bring if people willn’t change the problem will never be solved .

Our solution is aimed at fostering waste disposal and to acquaint people with the hazardous effects day-to-day wastes can have if not disposed properly. By regular use of our app, we can instill in our user, a good habit and a sense of duty towards environment.
Our target population is not only restricted to humans but also it will affect the lives of marine population and also birds and animals in a great way.
When we are addressing environment, we are actually referring to each and every creature because none of us are free from the perils of pollution, may it be water, soil or air.
If people will inculcate a habit of making proper use of dustbins not only in houses but also on the streets, then they can create a very big difference and this willbe the very first and effective step towards a cleaner surrounding.

We have done extensive research in littering behavior, single-use plastic, and plastic waste management from websites like R.Discovery and Google Scholar.

Also we surveyed more than 20 municipal workers and cleaner regarding this topic who cleans the roads and drains regularly.

Also, we have talked with NGOs such as Plastic Free India, saahas, and parvaah who have done cleaning and awareness campaign for plastic waste management.

We have also talked with industry experts such as Veena Sahajwalla & Akshay Guntet, who have worked for multiple years in the field of plastic waste management.

It addresses a significant problem that is littering behavior among individuals as 80% of all plastic in the ocean are an outcome of littering by humans; the majority of plastic that ends up in landfills is also because of human littering behavior, as we litter the plastic in road, canal, drains instead of dustbins. This is important because landfills caused by human littering degrades the soil and emit methane into the atmosphere, and plastic pollution generated in the ocean due to human littering kills around 100 Million ocean organisms every year.

We selected the prototype stage because we have been able to make a working prototype that is good enough to demonstrate our core function. With this prototype as the base, we will make the beta product used for piloting in our college.

Also, our prototype has been able to validate our concept. With the prototype alone, we were able to get to the finals of some of the significant hackathons like the Accenture innovation challenge and SAP semicolon hackathon and get selected for incubation by bincube.org.

The application is developed in Android studio, official IDE for android. For backend java is used. Several android libraries are also used for enhanced working of the app. Google maps SDK is used for displaying current location, dustbins and geofences. Adobe XD is used for UI UX and xml for frontend development of the app.
Libraries are used for integrating scan feature, also for reward feature. Different widgets and functionalities are used to make the app more interactive and easy to use. Such as in ranking page, community section etc. better user experience is ensured.

Currently, we are not serving any customers because we are still in Beta testing, and soon we will launch the app in the play store. And by the following year, we predict to have 1000 User, and our initial launch will be in our own University with more than 3000 Plus students.

Impact Goal 1 - Connect with at least 50 NGOs who can help us in terms of CSR, networking, and Government legalities.

Execution - Using platforms like ngobox.org to pitch my service to NGOs working in the field of waste management.

Impact Goal 2 - Acquire at most minuscule 200 Users from referrals, validating that the users like our app.

Execution - By giving Bonus rewards and P coins for referring to a friend  

Impact goal 3 - Minimum of 90% daily traffic in our app. This will validate that the user fully utilizes all the app's features.

Execution: By incentivizing them for long, they stay active in the app.

Impact goal 4 - At least 2 Cleaning campaigns organized through the Pfree platform.

Execution: Our community feature will contain a 'create event' Option that allows users in the app to create events such as a cleaning campaign or awareness program through Pfree.

Impact goal 5 - At least 10000 + scans ( 100 -200 Kgs ) of plastic littered in dustbin rather than in road or drain.

Execution: Providing a milestone option if a user scans 10th, 100th, 1000th times will get a special reward motivating the user to scan as much as possible. 

We are going to measure our impact through the UN SGDs.
 
SDG 11 - Sustainable cities and communities 

Target 6, Indicator 1 - Proportion of urban solid waste regularly collected and with adequate final discharge out of total urban solid waste generated by cities.

With pfree, the user will now throw in dustbins instead of throwing in roads or drains, leading to more waste collection and a further increase in proper disposal.

SDG 14 - Life Below the water

Target 1 - By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution

Indicator 1 b - plastic debris density.

As the majority of plastic in oceans comes from drains/canals as people throw waste in the drains/canal that goes to the river, ending up in the oceans; with Pfree, we will create the habit of the user of throwing plastic in the dustbin, making less plastic ending up in canals.

Financial - barriers terms of finances are 
i.) Capital for marketing and campaigns, and we need awareness among people to start using this app we need to make it like a social trend like trend started by Mr. Beast such as #teamseas, so for that, we do need Capital.
Also, we need to set up our own office space, hire new staff to make the software scalable.

ii.) Technical - In terms of technology, We are currently searching for a professional UI/UX designer as applications like pfree need an excellent interface that gives a pleasurable experience to the user.

iii.) legal - in terms of legalities, we need to get permission from the local municipality to access the dustbins' location.

iv.) Market barriers: there are no significant competitors to us currently in the market, so right now, there is no considerable entry barrier to the market, but as ours is a software solution, the chances are that other parties may see our growth and start making copycat apps to mitigate this we need to execute rapidly and swiftly in the market, to make our brand impression strong among user.

Team Member 1 - Anup Paikaray - 

i.) Winner of 3M Young Innovator challenge award organizned by 3M international. 

ii.) Winner of EO GSEA Pune Organized by Enterreperuship Organization. 

iii.) Winner in more than 30 Business plan, Innovation challenges and Hackathons.

iv.) My work in the field of Cleantech is also reconginzed by UNDP. 

Team Member 2 - Pratyusha Sarangi - SHe is one of the finest software developer and a experienced android developer she has won multiple innovation challenges and national level hackathon , 

some of her major achoievement 

i.) winner of Agri India Hackathon organized by Government of India 

ii.) Top 100 Accenture Innovation challenge 

iii.) Top 30 SAP semicolon Hackathon 

IV.) Top 50 UN SOLVED CHALLENGE

Currently bincube.org is our incubation partner and they are supporting us in the business model , impact measurement and networking. 

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