Eco-Grow+

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Reward. Our solution is an app that incentivises the user to recycle in a competitive and engaging way.

Our solution is a new, innovative app that tracks and monitors the user's recycling statistics. 

The app will utilise QR code and barcode scanning technology to identify the location of recycling and the item that is being recycled. We will also implement a locking feature to prevent overuse of the system resulting in points being exploited.

The app will also include a built-in map so that the user can pinpoint their local recycling centres and can follow their individual recycling journey.

The app will have a leaderboard system where users can compete with people in their local community to have the best recycling statistics of the month.

The user will be able to watch their own virtual tree grow as they progress along their recycling journey. This will eventually manifest into real-life prizes, for which we have plans to partner with eco-friendly businesses.

After conducting a few surveys, we encountered a problem with the logistics of the app. Different council areas have different recycling procedures. To solve this problem, we will include a log-in sequence and settings where the user can change their location to find specific information about their local area.  

The issue we are trying to tackle is the amount of waste that is not recycled correctly which, as we are acutely aware, is a huge global issue. We took particular notice of the issue in our local area where we saw large amounts of waste being disposed of in the same bin, wrong bin or even not being disposed of at all. This issue even arose in our school where we saw recyclable items being thrown out alongside non-recyclable products.

In 2019 alone, Scotland produced 2.4 million tonnes of household waste, and only 44.7% of this was recycled. This number could be drastically improved by making changes in the way we treat our recyclable objects.

This number then reduced to 42%, showing that our problem is actually getting worse, and we want to prevent this from happening again.

Studies have shown that if an item is heavily marketed as recyclable then it is more likely to be recycled than if itisn't, where it will most likely end up in landfill. Our app can help to break this cycle by motivating people to recycle more than what they already do.

At first, in the testing stages of the development of our app, we intend to improve the wellbeing of the people in our community by reducing the amount of waste that we encounter on a day-to-day basis. Initially we plan to pilot the app within our school with the view of expanding this to our local community once we have evaluated its success. This can then benefit a wider range of people as we spread further and further afield to tackle a larger part of the problem.

We conducted a survey among teachers in our school to gather opinions about our solution and to collect any potential ideas for improvement. 83% of the teachers that we surveyed agreed that they would use the app without making any changes, and the other 17% gave us a helpful insight into what we could do to improve the app, such as the addition of notifications to remind people to use the app. These discussions will be critical in helping us to make our app the best concept that it could be.

We chose the concept stage of development as we have a developed idea but haven't began the initial creation of the software itself.

Our technology will be new software in the form of a mobile application.

Our solution has not yet been launched, but during the trial period after the actuation of the app we would hope to significantly affect the population of Clackmannanshire, which is approximately 50,000 people.

We are looking to decrease the amount of items that could be recycled that are going into landfill and improve the well-being of people around us by clearing the rubbish from the streets of our community. Another one of our aims is to increase the public's awareness of our recycling issue and how they can help to solve it.

We are also looking to expand the horizons of our app and find external partners to help incentivise people to use our app.

The development of our app will help us to achieve these goals.

We are planning to measure the success of our app by monitoring the amount of users that we gain through month 1, month 6 and month 12. This will allow us to see whether more or less people are becoming interested in our app.

We could also potentially measure the amount of waste (in kilograms) that is recycled in our community and track if it is increasing or decreasing, allowing us to see if our app is working in the way that we intend it to.

The main barrier that currently exists for us is the technical aspect of this project, although we do know of some software developers in universities across Scotland that we could employ to help bring our idea into actuality.

One of our team members is a member of the Scottish Youth Parliament so is well-versed in the issues affecting people in our community and is accomplished at public speaking which will help immensely in the promotion of our app.

All of our team members have experienced the extent of our issue on our community, so we are easily able to relate to others who have qualms about recycling, and gives us the motivation to put our idea into action to benefit the wider community.

We are all students who are studying engineering science, meaning that we all have technical mindsets which would help to streamline any potential collaborations with software developers and coders.

We currently do not partner with any organizations but have plans to partner with eco-friendly businesses in the future to reward people for their recycling efforts.

We qualify for this prize as our idea tackles a huge sustainability issue by allowing our community to become more sustainable by recycling more.

Our entire team is made up of girls of the age 15 who want to make a difference in the world that we live in for the future of our generation and those to come.