MARC | Devpost

MARC Bin
Our Models!
MARC Bin Sketch
MARC App

Inspiration

Have you ever come across recycling bins littered with food waste? Were you aware that once food waste goes into a bin, the entire bin becomes contaminated and completely un-recyclable?

Singapore is currently facing a waste “epidemic”. Last year, 2.8 million tonnes of non-recyclable waste were disposed, which is the weight of nearly 200,000 double-decker buses! A significant 40% of the population still does not actively recycle. Singapore’s low recycling rate has only been declining in recent years, even reaching an all-time low of 13% in 2020.

We have identified 3 main obstacles to household recycling. Firstly, Singaporeans lack knowledge on what can be recycled and how to dispose of recyclables. Singaporeans also lack motivation to recycle due to the inconvenience of travelling to a recycling bin. Lastly, COVID-19 impacted manual recyclables collection programmes.

What it does

To tackle these problems, we proudly present our Massive Automated Recycling Classifier, MARC!

MARC is a holistic automated system which consists of a smart recycling bin and a mobile app. The MARC bin is a secure bin that has waste recognition and recyclables sorting capabilities. Combined with the MARC app, our system is an integrated system which makes recycling easy and fun! Users can earn points from recycling items and redeem rewards using the app.

How we built it

We came up with the physical structure of the MARC bin, as well as the features and functionalities of the accompanying MARC mobile app. We also built an AI classification model, and simulated the app and the running of the model through a website.

What we learned

We picked up new skills along the way, with some of us learning React and Android Studio for the first time!

What's next for MARC

MARC is a scalable project that is currently targeted at reducing household waste, but it definitely has the potential for industrial-scale use as well. Due to its automated nature, the MARC bin system with its AI model can help reduce industrial waste by automatically classifying and sorting recyclable waste. Given the large scale of industrial waste, this could have a huge impact on the environment through significantly ameliorating the waste crisis the world is facing.