Wasteless

Wasteless aims to reduce food waste within schools through a composting scanner app system. 

Our solution is to develop a two-part compost system consisting of a uniquely engineered compost scanner and an app. The idea for the compost bin is to scan all the waste material as it is being thrown in– as this occurs, the scanner can detect the different materials, whether that’s organic waste, plastic or other materials. This way, we can see how much organic waste is actually being thrown away and what is not being thrown away correctly. 

The second part of the system involves an app. The app is connected to the scanner, in that you can see the live results of the materials that are being thrown in. Additionally, the app can be accessed by parents and students to survey the food for that day. They can give live feedback and interact with other students/parents to see what they want to see next, and what they can do better. This information can then be given to the staff and nutrition department of the school district and used accordingly.

We are trying to reduce the amount of food waste coming from schools, specifically aimed towards elementary and middle schools. Throughout our experiences, we’ve noticed how students throw away uneaten food and trash–- the problem expands further to additionally not throwing the materials in the right bin. 

For example, here in the US, approximately 54 million tons of food waste is produced ever year (feedingamerica.org), with 530 thousand tons produced from schools (foodservicedirector.org). Additionally however, only 9% of the compostable food is actually composted.

On one hand, we are trying to actively change students’ mindsets in the younger generation, specifically aimed towards elementary and middle school students. Often during school, we learn how plastic and global warming are harmful to the environment; however, we feel like without doing anything firsthand, it’s difficult to change students’ mindsets and leave a lasting impact. As a result, we want to implement a food waste system that students can actively contribute to so they can be aware in the future.

By helping raise awareness and making an impact in elementary/middle schools, we are also serving everyone around us. We are reducing wasted food and thus the huge amounts of energy and labor going into producing the food. We are also educating the younger generation, so that in the future, they can also carry that knowledge and influence others on a day-to-day basis.

In order to understand our target population, we created multiple surveys: 1) Nutrition Department in the Cupertino Union School District. 2) Students within that age category. 

Through our district survey, we gained more knowledge into how meals are served, and the food requirements listed by the federal government. For excess food, we found that “Food that has been heated is thrown away per health department regulations.” On the other hand, “Fruit and vegetables are saved for the next service period.” Additionally, we learned that California school districts will be required to donate excess food to food recovery organizations to benefit local communities in need.

From our student survey, we learned that 45.2% of the students surveyed typically buy school lunch, while 28.6% eat home lunch. However, of those who buy school lunch, 62.1% said they sometimes like the food, while 17.2% mentioned not liking it. Additionally, 69.2% of those who have home lunch say they don’t get school lunch because of not liking the food. Furthermore, only 33.3% of all students surveyed said they finish all their food, while 57.1% said they finished most/some of their food.

In conclusion, we notice how there's a lack of effort to push students into reducing food waste. Additionally, 78.6% of the students surveyed mentioned not having composting systems in their schools. More action is thereby needed to inform and solve this issue.

Right now we are at a concept phase, since we are currently improving the details of our solution. Some things that we have accomplished thus far is that we contacted our district board on the ongoing problem of food waste, and how the students have continuously thrown out food. Additionally, we have come up with an idea on how to solve the problem, as with our app and scanning system.

Our idea relies on a mix of robotics and software. We plan to create a scanner that can detect the materials entering a waste bin as it is being thrown in. Depending on the materials (ex. Plastic, metal, paper, organic compounds, etc.), it can then go into the according bin. This will be created using machine learning and X-ray inspection systems.

Additionally, in order to determine the trends from the scanner and students, we will develop an app using code. The app will be able to interact with students/parents and survey the day’s scanner distribution results.  

At the moment, we are still designing and getting ready to prototype our design. We plan to share our goal to the public in the next year. We expect multiple years to finish developing and testing the product, and in that time, we will start making our product public and hopefully expand our message.

Our impact goals for the next year includes prototyping our app/scanner system, and slowly informing others about our goal. We hope to share our message, and potentially in the next few years, we will be able to release our products into the market and make an even larger impact.

Through our app, we can track and determine the data being sent in by the scanner and target population. From the data collected from the scanner, we can see the food waste (and other materials) collected from the day/week’s sorting. Additionally, these results will be sent out live to students/parents for them to see our progress. This way, people can actively see how their actions are making a difference and impacting the environment.

Some obstacles that we face include having the resources necessary to build our prototype for the app/scanner system. At the moment, we have an idea, but we must execute our plan. 

Additionally, another obstacle includes whether the market will want our product. We still have to finish prototyping. However after that, we will have to then start releasing it out to the public.

We decided to research the problem of food waste from our personal experiences as high schoolers. In our experience, we’ve witnessed the build-up of food waste from our classmates and students. Many times, students don’t enjoy certain foods and as a result, don’t finish it and throw it away. 

Additionally however, we’ve also noticed how many foods and materials aren’t thrown away properly into the correct bin. For example, rather than throwing the food into the compost bin, they throw everything away together into a trash bin; or in other cases, students just throw it away in whatever bin is most convenient or not filled. 

This is extremely important because it makes it more difficult for workers to sort (which itself is a dangerous process). Additionally, this small distinction can impact the environment greatly–- food that is composted release significantly less methane into the air compared to being buried in landfills.

At the moment, we are not directly partnering with any organizations. However, we have communicated with nearby school districts informing them about our mission and surveyed them about the problem.