Binnovative

BinnO is a recycling assistant device that includes actuated bins with an AI-powered classification software to categorize common trash types, and a mobile app for sorting on-the-go.

Binno is a trash sorting system where customers simply put their trash in front the camera and the bin will automatically open the correct lid for customers to put in. Through IoT, machine learning and AI technology, we have collected a substantial database that recognizes 4 most common trash types in Vietnam with the accuracy level up to 95% and it is growing every minute by collecting feedback per scan. We also develope a supplementary BinnO app, which has 6 main features. 

- Trash scanning: identifies different trash types (an alternative used when users don’t have an actual bin nearby

- Display fill level: Users can see the percentage fill level of their own Binno and will be alerted when it’s full. 

- Gamification: every week, new events will be added to increase interaction between users

- Customer support: User’s can contact developers for any questions

- Bin control: users can adjust and customize the bin (different trash types, lid opening time, etc)

- Analytics and suggestion: Using user’s behavior, Binno automatically creates personal suggestions for each user to increase efficiency. 

We hope to alleviate the enormous environmental impact of waste disposal, especially in developing countries like Vietnam, where most of the developed world’s trash is dumped in these countries’ landfills. This is taking a toll on Vietnamese life quality in densely-populated areas, as they are exposed to air, water, and soil pollution from the 80 tonnes of waste disposed everyday. Out of 6,9 billion tonnes of trash discarded worldwide, only 9% is recycled, 12% is being processed, and the alarming 79% remaining goes straight to landfills (Geyer et. al, 2017). Vietnam is projected to discard 54 million tonnes of household waste by 2030 (World Bank), yet right now in 2022, no official guidelines for household trash processing is published, leaving citizens with little to no recycling tools. Moreover, since recycling is a fairly unfamiliar topic to many low-income families, we hope to integrate other educational features in our solution. We truly believe that by establishing a trash sorting and recycling system, we will be able to narrow down the work needed for household users, waste management workers, and recycling agencies. If BinnO becomes a city-wide system, or a nation-wide system, it will create a network of recycling bins and trash sorting, assisting citizens with their everyday waste disposal.

Our solution aims towards schools and offices, especially in developing countries like Vietnam. The reason for this is because in Vietnam, where we live and conduct our research, waste handling is extremely overlooked due to other industrial and economic priorities. As a result, its citizens are not very familiar with trash sorting and there is no sufficient system that guides them through the process. The sight and odor of streets filled with household trash or rivers with floating plastic bags are familiar to all Vietnamese city dwellers. With BinnO, we hope to minimize unnecessary steps of waste classification, hence encouraging people to create the habit of living green. We understand that it is quite complicated to identify different chemical components of trash and effectively sort them, so BinnO would be both a sorting machine, while having its own educational values.

We have conducted research on over 500 Vietnamese people in three major cities: Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh city, and Da Nang. Our target audience ranges from 18 to 65 years-old, and our survey pool is selected at random to ensure the most objective outcome. We asked about their prior experience with trash classification (48% of the surveyors have zero experience), the existing difficulties while recycling and sorting, as well as other waste type behaviors. We also had a pilot stage where we sent out our prototype for household use in a family of 6 in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. 2 months later, we collected their feedback, which mostly concerned the design and mechanical issues of the bin, such as lid-opening time, trash capacity, and motor power.  worked to solve these problems. 

We selected prototype because we already research the market and customer's behavior lead to the conclusion that it is feasible to build smart bins for Vietnamese market. We have created a prototyped model. It is currently in testing phrase at a low-income family household in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. 

The core technology that powers our invention is artificial intelligence (AI).

We have an offline server that is used to train our data about different types of trash. Then, these trained datasets will be sent to raspberry pi, where it is trained, stored and sent to google real time database. Here, Google's real time database can therefore update the information to the user's app.

We are currently at the prototype stage and have produced one prototype model for one low-income level user to test in Ho Chi Minh city. After completing testing for five months, we plan to create 20 Binno smart bins to test around Ho Chi Minh city (5 in schools, 5 in offices, and 10 in family households). The nature of our project is to educate and collect data from users to expand our database system for classifying types of trash. We aim for an ecosystem of Binno (around 100 smart bins) by 2022. Therefore, the expansion of our project is considered modest. Nevertheless, we are a completely non-profit organization that aims solely to improve the recycling behavior of Vietnamese people. As a result, our budget is pretty tight to produce many products, and we want to truly listen to every customer's feedback to effectively enhance our development every day. 

As mentioned above, we are aiming for 100 smart bins around Ho Chi Minh City by the end of 2022. We extremely value the purpose of education. As high school students, we realize many of our peers have very little knowledge on recycling correctly. With many educational features included in our apps such as recycling tutorial, gamification, analytics/suggestions, we hope that through Binno, recycling slowly becomes a normal daily activity in Vietnamese’s everyday life. We believe that every scan is a new lesson for the customer as they learn the correct type of trash. In the long term, when customers are in places that don’t have Binno anymore, they can instinctively remember the correct type of trash to recycle effectively. Furthermore, we understand recycling is a pretty new and boring activity from the viewpoint of Vietnamese. As such, we create the gamification feature including events (with small rewards) to increase the excitement while using the product. We also develop analytic features in order to help customers better understand their behavior and improve. 

Recognizing inefficient waste recycling in Vietnam, our smart bins aim at Vietnamese schools, offices, and household users that want to make an impact on the environment by effective recycling and sorting. We are committed to making these products, both the bin and the app, user-centric and ecocentric, meaning the system is contributed and grown by its own users to create positive change in our environment. We hope to create an ecosystem that has wide usage to maximize recycling and sorting capacities of every individual. We understand that the environmental fight is a long-standing one, but we are determined to make an impact through BinnO. Our project could be directly related to UN Goal 3, 13, and 13 as we strive to make an positive impact on Vietnamese's consumption behavior through the form of recycling to combat with the climate change.

Financial: Through personal fund, we currently gather around 2,000$ for this project. In the future, we hope to introduce this project to new events and company which will be willing to sponsor our product in order to expand this project massively.

Binnovative is a group of highschool students who are science-enthusiast and nature lover consisting of Thang Truong, team leader, Chi Nguyen, and Kien Nguyen. Every member of our team come from different schools with different background and strengths.Therefore, we can contribute uniquely toward this project in order to make it perfect. 

We currently partner with Summit, an organization that helps students around Vietnam to connect each others and open meaningful projects toward community.