One man’s trash is another man’s treasure
Textile, Plastic, Paper, Electronics and Garment Industry play a predominant role at enhancing the GDP of Bangladesh. However, textile, plastic, paper waste and scrap recycling & management is something that’s not very often talked about but is definitely causing a serious setback in our combined and day-to-day lives. This scrap and waste material issue have managed to turn into a billion-dollar problem at the moment and if this problem could be tackled properly, it would not only create new employment opportunities, giving rise to small independently owned businesses but will also give rise to the overall well-being of the state as well as creating a major positive impact on the all-embracing exacerbating climate state of our country.
Now that we know the problems is very concerning, what can we do about it? Our idea is to create a platform for both individual customers and industries so that this massive amount of waste can be turned into something useful and worth the money. To tackle this billion-dollar issue, introducing- RecycloBD, a mobile app that facilitates turning trash into treasure! In all seriousness, the aim of this app is to ensure proper waste recycling and management on both personal and industrial level. Waste materials from households as well as industries can be sold through this app to people who turn waste into resources and again, people willing to buy different kinds of scrap and wastes like: textiles scrap, glass, plastic, old books etc. can buy wastes through this app. On the other hand, people who turn waste into useful resources can also sell their recycled, reprocessed items through this app. For instance: someone who collects textile scrap can buy scraps through this app and then after turning the scraps into something useful like a rug, that person can sell the rug at a good price through this app.
Fig 01: Rug made from Textile scrap. [Image source: Moment Open/Getty Images] Rugs shown in Fig 01: can be made from textile scraps and then such rugs can be sold at a good price through our app.
Oftentimes, we face situations where we are willing to donate clothes, purses, furniture, books and other goods but can’t figure out who exactly would seek for such donations. Also, there are times when we want to resell old/used/worn-out clothing, accessories, books, electronic devices for some extra income or simply want to get rid of the scrap fabrics, metals, glass pieces and electronics lying around in our home. In such cases, when the user decides to donate items, through this app the items are collected from the user and donated to the people who are in dire need. Again, when the user decides to sell their possessions, the app connects them to other users and local vendors, recycling industries that are willing to buy these items. In this way, a bridge is established between the buyers and sellers which results in easy exchange of waste products while ensuring reuse of these items in question. Also, this can enable designers and creatives looking for an income source to be able to buy scrap fabric, glass pieces, metals etc. and start their very own business by creating their own fashion, accessory and other creative items ready to be sold. This will play a very important role in eradicating unemployment problem in general.
Fig 02: Kids T-Shirt made with wastage fabric and Jeans T-Shirt made with wastage fabric respectively. [Image collected from International Conference on Recent Innovation in Civil Engineering for Sustainable Development(IICSD-2015) Paper ID: EE-041]
Fig 02 demonstrates a clear example of how scrap fabric pieces could be reused to create new clothing items and could be sold at a profit thus enabling people to reuse worn-out goods to create employment opportunities like coming up with fashion houses in general. Scrap fabric can also be used for sewing face masks and accessories. Using these scraps, individuals can create new items for use or can simply sell their old used items or can create a fashion house selling second-hand clothes and household good to raise funds for themselves or for charity.
Again, Industries produce tons and tons of waste every year and oftentimes, these wastes are either fully discarded without considering reuse or not properly recycled at all. To solve this big of an issue, officials involved in industries can sell wastes in bulk while recycling industries as well as general industries and people looking for scraps with a view to reusing these can buy these. In this case, wastes are to be sold and bought in bulk (weighted in kilograms or tons). For instance- In Canada, the cities of Markham, ON and Brandon, MB banned textiles from their respective garbage collections in an attempt to curb higher volumes of fabric from further occupying landfill space. Vancouver, BC is weighing a similar decision https://advancedwastesolutions.ca/dressing-the-problem-textile-waste-in-canada/Canada is currently dealing with this billion-dollar issue by banning textiles from garbage collection in several cities to make sure that people reach out for reusing, recycling and donating textile items. This shows that scrap and waste management isn’t just a national issue at this stage but a global issue. If developed countries like Canada could put so much emphasis on waste management, we as a developing country should be putting more emphasis on this issue and just like how we turned our men into manpower, we could actually turn our trash into treasure and thus paving a way to increase the country’s over-all economic and environmental wellbeing.
Most of us have small pieces of glass and wood laying around in the house that we are ready to throw away. Instead of throwing away such pieces, we could sell these wastes in bulk which would not only help us get rid of waste materials at a profit but will also help creative glass artists buy these, paint on these, reprocess and then sell at a profitable price.
Fig 03: Using old glass bottles and scrap wood pieces to create beautiful show-pieces. Image source: Momma Young @Home (www.budgetdumpster.com/blog/reusing-glass-bottles-and-jars/)
Fig:03 shows a clear instance of how old glass bottles and scrap wood pieces could be used by creatives to create eye-catching items that could be sold at a good profit instead of just throwing these away and polluting the environment.
We come across situations where we want to sell old books and paper lying around the house, such wastes could be sold to recycling industries, local vendors and creatives that could turn paper waste into eye-catching pieces through this app.
Fig:04: Old plastic bottles used to create eye-catching piggy banks for kids (Image source: https://www.foshbottle.com/blog/60-ways-to-reuse-plastic-bottles) Plastic pollution is one of the hot topics playing a major impact on the globe at the moment. Through RecycloBD plastic bags, bottles, plastic plates etc. could be sold to local vendors, plastic recycling industries and creatives who can turn plastic to good use as shown in Fig:04.
Similarly, metal scraps, e-waste and other wastes could be recycled, reprocessed and reused through our app.
This project is made with a view to acting like a sophisticated yet easy medium for people to collect, reuse, recycle, resell and reprocess scraps and goods that are considered to be waste products.
It also creates a brilliant pathway for creative minds to turn trash into treasure and sell those items and thus creating employment opportunities.
A flow chart showing the facilities available in the app is as follows:
Fig 05: Logo for RecycloBD Drawn by hand using Adobe Draw and for touch ups, Adobe Illustrator was used to design the logo of the app. The app logo portrays the following:
• The Shoes in the logo are made from textile scrap materials. Textile scraps are sown in, on old worn-out shoes to turn the shoes into useable fashion-forward one-of-a-kind shoes. Hence, the shoes in the logo portray the reuse of waste materials that is, turning trash into treasure.
• The grass all around is a depiction of the good impact this app has on the environment, climate and over-all wellbeing of the country.
• The recycle symbol at the back symbolizes that this app is used for waste management and recycle purposes.
For using the app, each type of users has to sign up and login.
• User can donate their clothing's by first clicking on the donate option.
• After going to the donate page they can pick one of the following delivery methods:
a. They can go to the nearest delivery point to give away the package.
b. They can opt a delivery option in which the package will be taken from their home.
• The user will get points for each donation, depending on the following situations:
a. The user can get volunteering certification from our affiliated organizations.
b. The user can get different vouchers & discounts as a gift, so that they can feel encouraged.
• They can contact use directly whenever any ad is posted on our app.
• They can sell their by-products.
• Any valid non-profit organization that works for children/women/ orphanage welfare are more than welcome to join us through a simple and completely free registration process.
• Our target is to help these organizations get as much as resources from our platform.
• They can post adds on the materials they need in our app so that we can provide them the proper materials they need, this will keep the cycle alive and a strong recycling process on the move that can reduce a noticeable amount of waste.
Fig 06: App Dashboard.
The App dashboard consists of the following features:
Users can donate apparel, books, paper and other items. After clicking on the donate option the user will have to choose a delivery option,
a. The user can use our delivery service to send their bundle to our storage.
b. The user can bring their own bundle to their nearest storage.
The recycling industries as well as waste management warehouses or fashion houses that convert scrap to useable fashion items can buy waste materials from our storage or from any industries. Users can also buy recycled & reprocessed items such as: rugs and bags made from textile scraps that are both creative and eye-striking at the same time.
Users as well as industries can sell waste products such plastic, glass, textile scrap, electronics, metals etc. according to their desire. Household waste or worn-out products such as old furniture, books, paper etc. can also be sold. Creatives who reprocess scraps by turning wastes into useful items can sell those items through this app.It is required for industry management to register as authentic industries so that these industries can sell their waste through this app. This step is necessary to prevent scams from happening since registered industries would be considered authentic through proper verification. Furthermore, different NGOs and Volunteering Communities can register through this app and actively provide service accordingly.
This feature enables businesses to post ads and users to view ads. This feature gives necessary info about the app such as copyrights, permissions, cause of creating this app etc. Also, through this feature, users can donate to us to help our app sun smoothly.In conclusion, the vision behind this mobile application consists of the following key points:
• To solve a billion-dollar issue of waste & scrap recycling, management and distribution.
• To bring down unemployment rate by creating opportunities for individuals to sell and purchase scrap and use those items accordingly.
• To create a positive climate impact by ensuring reuse of scrap instead of discarding those to landfills and polluting the environment.
• To create easy medium between sellers and buyers and thus creating an e-commerce pathway.
• To create scopes for facilitating donation.
• The app can act like an e-commerce app for shops selling second-hand clothes and household good to raise funds.
Our future plans consist of the following focal points:
• Adding features like International Paying system.
• Creating Online Waste Disposal Equipment Shops as per demands.
• Creating proper channels and pathways for employee management system.
• Adding more updated features according to user’s demands.
• Creating strong global volunteering communities and establishing a platform for such virtuous causes through this app.
• Creating features that may help users interpret the negative impact of merely discarding wastes without considering recycling or following proper waste disposal protocols.
• Implementing the app to its full potential by updating the facilities as per the country’s demands as well as hopefully turning it into an app capable of providing service globally.
