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Welcome to Smart Bins, a revolutionary approach to making recycling easy and effective in schools and small businesses. Our goal is to provide an innovative solution to ensure proper waste management and environmental sustainability.

Transforming Waste Management

The Challenge: Limited Recycling Options

  • Many schools and small businesses have only one bin for trash in each room

  • It's impossible to separate recyclables from waste

  • Wasting these recyclable items strains recycling plants while sorting through mixed waste

Avoid Confusion in Classrooms

  • There's a lack of recycling bins in schools

  • Despite being taught the importance of recycling, students can't do so in classrooms

  • This inconsistency leads to uncertainty about where to dispose of items

Environmental Impact

  • Many people don't get to recycle even if they wish to do so

  • They shouldn’t have to feel guilty knowing that they are harming the environment

Community Involvement 

Partnering Organizations
 

NJIT Robotics

We partnered with NJIT to manufacture parts for Smart-Bin. Since we did not have access to 3d printers, NJIT Robotics kindly offered their makerspace to us and printed the models that we supplied.

Sourland Conservancy

In order to further spread our mission, we sought out non-profit organizations that could help spread out word. Sourland Conservancy was kind enough to do so, and they will be releasing an Instagram post for the Smart-Bin on November 15 — World Recycling Day.

Local News

The creators of Smart-Bin, Aditya and Vivaan, were featured on the local South Patch News website.

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Understanding the Need

63% of people have put plastic into a trash can willingly.

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  • As students who have dealt with this problem, we understand the guilt of wasting recyclable items.

  • We are forced to throw snacks and paper in the same bin every day in school 

  • Our beliefs are shared with many others, and it's time to address this issue effectively

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How Smart Bins Work

  • The user simply holds their piece of trash in front of the bin

  • It is scanned and classified as recyclable or waste through our Artificial Intelligence model

  • Depending on its classification, they would know which side of the bin to place the object in.

 

Watch a demo of how it works in the video on the right!

  • The 2nd model is a completely autonomous trash can

  • It allows the user to just place their object on a platform, allowing automatic placement in the right bin.

  • Due to limited resources, we weren't able to manufacture this

  • However, we have placed all of our CAD files and source code on an open-source repository so the community can contribute to this cause! 

Join the Movement

Take Action

  • Use our free instructions for creating a Smart Bins, CAD models, and a source code for garbage classification

  • Watch our video explaining the use of our product to learn about its impact and to raise awareness

Positive Impact

  • By using Smart Bins, you will have a singular bin that handles both trash and recycling

  • It's especially beneficial for elementary schools, where students can easily place items in the correct bin

  • You'll be helping the environment by ensuring that recyclables end up in the right place

Transformation Through Action

  • Before using Smart Bins, customers might know about recycling but lack the opportunity to practice it in small rooms

  • Using our product allows them to recycle efficiently, ensure items are correctly classified, and contribute to a healthier planet

Our Commitment to the Cause

We recently developed the idea for Smart Bins, and although we're in the early stages, we are committed to researching and improving waste management solutions. We have read many articles and papers about the misclassification of recyclable items, the impact on people when they recycle, and how the environment is suffering due to the absence of recycling. 

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Vivaan Shah
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Aditya Prabhu

Research

Abstract

The increasing waste problem has globally skyrocketed issuing environmental, economic, and social challenges. These issues are accelerated through the misclassification and contamination of waste in recycling plants through increased costs and inefficiencies. This research examines the need for recycling, the harmful impacts of misclassification of waste in recycling plants, and its positive effects on people’s mental health. The document also explains how the Smart-Bin can help mitigate these issues by improving daily recycling practices. 

Introduction

It is well known that waste management and recycling are vital components of sustainable living. Even though recycling is widely taught, in reality the opportunity to do so is often limited. Many classrooms and offices have single trash bins that don’t provide people the opportunity to recycle.

The Need for Recycling

The waste generated by households mostly ends up in landfills, where it decomposes and results in significant environmental harm. The waste produced by households contributes to more pollution than 20 million cars. Recycling one ton of paper, something that isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of the country can save 7,650 gallons of water, 18 trees, and 472 gallons of oil. Furthermore, if 10% of all newspapers in America were recycled, 26,500,000 trees would be saved. The absence of recycling doesn’t just produce meaningless numbers, instead, its impact can be seen in everyday life. Recycling can improve air quality by 78%, over half the landfills would be eliminated if just a third of waste was recycled, and can potentially allow manufacturers to use up to 94% less of their normal energy output. Recycling also helps create jobs, boost the economy, and add to the supply of domestic manufacturing. By recycling, local manufacturers can better match their resource needs compared to if items end up in a landfill.

Issues with Misclassification and Contamination

The majority of Americans want to recycle whatever they use as a lot of them are aware of its benefits. Even though 84% of them reported that recycling is a priority for them in a survey, many of them don’t do it right. For example, 63% of people reported that they have willingly put plastic into a waste bin in a survey. Due to recyclable items mistakenly or willingly being put into waste bins, the environment is degrading. One of the main barriers to recycling for people is their lack of understanding and clarity about which items can be recycled. This results in them misclassifying where trash and recyclable objects go. Additionally, some participants of the survey also said that physical barriers were stopping them from recycling. Implementing Smart-Bin would fix both problems as it would eliminate the confusion by classifying the trash and also take up the same space as a trash can, thereby removing the physical barrier.

Only 32% of waste is recycled in America, and it isn’t even done right. Many consumers get confused about whether their items should go in the waste or recycle bin. Recyclable items sometimes end up in the waste while waste sometimes ends up in recycling plants; the latter, called contamination, is much worse. Contamination costs at least $300 million per year in additional labor, processing, and machinery repairs. In a study, it was estimated that over 25% of people place trash in the wrong section. The issue is that contamination is much more common than the other types of mistake. Our bin would drastically limit this issue by automatically sorting our trash. 

The largest recycling company in the U.S. shut down 25% of its plants. California, a state known for promoting recycling, also shut down more than 1000 recycling centers. This is because of high levels of contamination and the various costs associated with it. Contamination makes it harder for recycling plants to function as they deplete their resources. One of the main causes of contamination is consumer confusion, something that Smart-Bin can fix. 

While recycling is something that should be continuously growing due to the state that our planet is in, contamination is depleting resources to the point where the amount of effort put into recycling processes is decreasing.

Psychological benefits for people

There is a connection between the increasing mental health issues that people deal with and the environmental challenges that our world is facing. These issues and environmental challenges can be bridged together for the better through recycling. Since climate change instills a feeling of anxiety for most people, it amplifies previous mental health issues. These environmental problems can slowly fade away through increased recycling. It also allows people to feel like they have a meaning by increasing their confidence and belief in themselves. Finally, by recycling more people become more aware of their use of resources and become more mindful of what they use, leading to a more minimalist lifestyle. 

Conclusion

Effective waste management and recycling are a necessity for a brighter future. The current difficulty of waste misclassification will only get worse, proving the need for solutions to mitigate this issue. By slowly implementing the Smart-Bin in various locations, steps can be taken to reduce the inefficiency of recycling and work towards a cleaner future.

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