Scrapp – Cash for Trash

 

Problem:

“If present trends continue, by 2050, there will be 12 billion metric tons of plastic in landfills. That amount is 35,000 times as heavy as the Empire State Building.” If that isn’t a rallying cry, what is? The United States makes up 4% of the world’s population but produces more waste-to-population than any other country at 12%. “ India and China make up more than 36% of the world’s population and generate 27% of the world’s waste. To make things worse, the U.S. needs help when it comes to disposing and reusing waste. Each year, approximately 90 million tons of extremely useful recyclable products are thrown away and sent to landfills & billions of dollars are lost to landfill because of contamination of products and poor recycling techniques. Also, without a change in course, scientists say there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.

 

 

 

 

Vision:

Protecting planet earth from plastic waste & provide a better tomorrow for the future generations.

 

Target Market:

1. USA
2. Later expand it across the globe
3. Planet earth is the target market

 

Value Creation:

 

 

Value Capture:

 

Approach for rewards, value creation & value capture:

1. Create an app – “Scrapp”
2. Customers who sign up will give us the trash (plastic bottles, glass bottles, card board boxes, cans etc)
3. Reward customers with Scrapp points (or) cash for the items collected. This will indirectly engage customers to be responsible towards the environment.
4. Use available sorting solutions to collect trash from high traffic food businesses. Use Crowd sourcing for cost effective solutions
5. Leverage AI & Machine Learning for sorting & identifying patterns about customer’s consumption/usage
6. Collect trash from businesses as well & provide them insights about the customer’s behavior
7. Businesses (restaurants, high traffic food businesses) will also be rewarded with Scrapp points which can be redeemed for Cash (or) points
8. Provide leads for business about the behavior from customers & provide the coupons to the customers (customers are rewarded with their favorite coupons) (Value Capture from businesses)
9. Help businesses with predictions & forecasting using AI/ML
10. Recycle the products & sell it to the manufacturers (Value Capture)

Using AI & ML to categorize/identify trash

 

Team:

Currently I am the only one in my team. Will you partner with me in protecting planet earth for future generations ?

 

Competition:

There are some Reverse Vending solutions only in few states (California, Connecticut). Also, there are some AI solutions for Waste Management. There isn’t any app which rewards customers. This solution is different as it leverages AI & ML & engages customers with rewards. Also, we can gain valuable insights from the collected data from users using AI & ML. This data  can be used in many different ways for value creation/value capture & therefore create a circular economy to protect our planet earth.

 

Sources:

AMP Robotics Pilots Automated Secondary Sortation Facility (waste360.com)

How AI and Robotics are Solving the Plastic Sorting Crisis – Plug and Play Tech Center

Recycling and sensor-based waste sorting : TOMRA