Cloth Point

We have designed an app that helps educate residents of Stirling council on how to recycle clothing and textiles.

The fast fashion industry is one of the leading causes of global warming. This issue is also causing people to over consume. A lot of clothes are 'disposable' and only worn once. These clothes cant be donated due to pure quality however, the fabric can be recycled. 

The problem that we are trying to solve is the clothing/textile recycling issue. A lot of people don't know how to recycle clothes or they are not aware of where they can. Clothing/textiles recycling bins are very difficult to find in Stirling, as there is no website or app to give you this information. 

Often when you find a recycling bin they are too full and bags of clothes are scattered on the floor. This discourages people from recycling. There is also no indication of when the bins will be emptied. Our app would combat this issue by telling you exactly where the bins are and directions on how to get there, and how full the bins are by having sensors on the inside of them.

We have designed an app which helps people locate their nearest charity shops and clothing and textile recycling bins. The app includes a useful feature which shows you how full or empty the bins are as well as chat rooms for easy pick up and drop off for those who might struggle getting to a clothing donation point. The app is walker and car user friendly so that you never have to worry about not being able to donate your clothes no matter where you live.

Our solution which is battling the barrier to textiles recycling in Stirling helps the community to feel empowered. Often having too many unwanted items of clothing can cause stress and anxiety. Our app educates and assists with the recycling textiles process. The app will reduce the amount of bags tossed on the streets therefore will assist in Stirlings streets looking cleaner. 

We all study Design and Engineering, Sciences and have had previous experience with computing and IT. We are all female and have all experienced the pressures of feeling like you need a new outfit whenever there is a big event, these outfits are usually worn once and never again. This has opened our eyes to the fast fashion industry on a global scale and experiencing first hand the difficulties of recycling textiles in Stirling. We are in a very fortunate position as our school has an incredible computing department which will be able to aid in the development of our app and create prototypes for the bin sensors.

We created a questionnaire which we posted on our Wallace high School twitter page which asked parents and teachers about their textile recycling habits within the community. This questionnaire asked how often people recycled and if they have ever struggled to recycle. 66.7% of responses voted "Rarely (once a year)" to How often do you recycle textiles? This highlights the issue that not many people actually know how to recycle clothes. 

We also contacted multiple charity shops across Stirling to get insight on how their shops cope through changing trends throughout the year. All shops stated that they more often than not have too little stock and that post Christmas is when they get the most donations. Could this be to over consumption of goods prior to the holidays? This again raises awareness of the detrimental affect of the fast fashion industry. The charity shop owners stated that they would benefit from a platform where they could advertise when their stock was low. 

We also visited our nearest clothes recycling bin to find out if the bin advertised when it was emptied and by who. We noticed that the bin was vandalised and therefore it wasn't clear what clothes you could actually recycle.   

Typically when wanting to find out the location of recycling points its through word of mouth, a phone call, searching the web or stumbling across one accidentally. Our app brings technology to this issue. All the information you need is conveniently in one place. 

If this solution is successful we have visions of making it a much larger scale and getting all council areas in Scotland involved to help towards the NET ZERO goal the country has. 

The technology we wish to install in the bins could be something that the government could potentially want to install in all recycling points, not just clothing. The sensors could ensure that people don't waste time and effort going to specific bins only to find out they were full. This would hopefully reduce the amount of bags left on the floor. 

The instant change we wish to see if the empowerment to Stirling Council residence to be able to recycle unwanted items of clothing. We also hope to see an instant increase in stock levels in local charity shops. 

We then hope to see less bags of textiles on the streets and scattered around bins (Our sensors would help with this)

Longer term we hope to provide a platform for charity shops to advertise when they have low stock levels and if there are particular items of clothing in need, For example, dresses around prom time of year. 

We hope that this app will subconsciously make users consume less, if they are reminded by notifications every few months to recycle and donate their unused textiles.

Our app uses GPS technology to locate recycling bins and generate routs. The app will be linked will google maps to allow the direction feature to work. 

The sensors in the bins will be linked to microcontrollers that are connected to the internet to report when the bins are full. This data will be available to see live on the app. 

We hope to have all textile recycling points and Charity shops in the Stirling Council area connected to the app. 38 000 people live in Stirling, we hope that 2.5% of the population will download and use the app within the first year of launching.

Currently the financial barriers are that we do not have any funds to support the development of the sensors to be located in the bins. 

Advertisement of the app will need to be loud to get downloads.

Some charity shops may not want to be a part of the app

People may download the app and forget about it as recycling clothes is not a regular occurrence. 

Currently working with a member from FIDA to help mentor and guide our next steps. We also have two Design and Engineering Teachers who mentor us.