YouSort app

Helping people recycle products in a personalized way

Do you have a problem to recycle some products that are not clearly identifiable as belonging to the plastic, paper or glass bin? If so, YouSort app will solve this problem! Our idea is to create an app that would explain to users to which bin they should put EVERY piece of their waste. After you buy goods in our partner stores, you will get a receipt with a QR code. To find out how to recycle every item on the shopping list, scan the code with YouSort app and click on the item you wish to read about. Easy to use and to understand: this is what recycling needs! Recycling is not just protecting our planet. Have fun with YouSort app and develop a healthy addition to recycling! For every recycled product, you earn eco-points that will, after a while, give you the possibility to get a product for free from one of our partner shops. Enlarge your horizons with educational and explicative videos and texts about why and how to recycle in general. With our interactive map discover places where you can recycle specific waste (electronic, and other waste that can be reused). Premium option will make available some services such as delivery of waste from your home to adequate places, and many others!

Future developments

The advantage of our app is that it can easily be upgraded to increase its efficiency and impact. Our strategy for the future encompasses two main aspects. First, we want to increase our network. Then, we have also identified future features that could be integrated, in order to improve the user experience.

Network: Developing our partnerships

As we have seen, we will first develop our app based on a small number of retailers. However, as we expect our app to become popular, we have to increase the number of retailers involved. We therefore have to develop the app.

Increasing our network of partners

Supermarkets: the first step for our app would be to expand our networks of partners, especially big retail chains which cater most of the population.

Diversification: finding other interested partners The next step for our app would be to integrate a service able to collect a particular kind of garbage. Indeed, some companies might be interested in collecting some kind of items to recycle them. For example, buses in London will be powered by coffee. This invention was created by a startup which collects the coffee and turn it into fuel. Given that our app can monitor consumption habits of the users- knowing exactly what they have thrown, we could easily forge a partnership with this startup, by offering to collect and deliver used coffee, in exchange of a fee that will be partly reversed to the users. Similarly, Réco is a box collecting plastic installed in supermarkets’ parking so that Suez can recycle them, and in exchange users receive discount vouchers for the supermarket. Our app could bypass the intermediary step by directly connecting users to recycling units, which might increase recollection because they won’t have to go to a specific place to recycle. More generally, we could do the same when some firms have some recycling events. It is for example more and more popular in the fashion industry to collect old clothes in exchange of discount to clients. Our app could therefore notify the users when there is a campaign in their city.

Global deployment Our app was primarily developed for the Continental French Market. However, we can also export it to countries which have already an organized recycling system, such as Western Europeans Countries. To best register the necessary data, it will be more useful to work directly with producers. We will therefore be able to develop a global database of all the necessary info to recycle.

Technology: Future diversification

Besides, our app can also be enhanced in the future by developing new features that will increase its societal impact. As a matter of fact, this app could integrate services that optimize the use of the products bought and dramatically decrease waste. Given that our solution is based on an app, it offers a great flexibility to improve it and to transform it such as to offer a whole “experience” with respect to recycling and “garbage management”. We have identified several areas of improvement:

Optimizing recycling: Managing garbage collection With the data collected on consumptions habits, the municipalities could best manage garbage collection by setting the right timing. For example, if they notice that the level of garbage for one district is too low, it could decide to postpone the recollection until the amount will be significant. It will ensure that the recollection is done for nothing.

Diversifying the offer: Dealing with no bills Sometimes, people don’t take their bills. Besides, as we are environment friendly, it would be logical to be able to run the app without any paper support. That’s why we also want to work with supermarkets so that the user’s account will be automatically updated when he makes new purchases. The easiest way to do so would be to use fidelity cards: once the card is scanned, the account is recognized and the database is updated. However, it would require that we are able to exchange information between the systems. Linking directly the purchases with info on our app could also help to promote other applications and enhancements by creating a virtuous circle. For example, the app could then record the purchases, and as such no ticket would be needed.

Monitoring environmental impact Our app could additionally indicates the environmental impact of the user’s recycling behavior. For example, the QR code could also incorporate information about the amount of CO2 that was generated to elaborate the product purchased which would allow the app to aggregate the data and establish the global amount of CO2 generated by the monthly purchases, and compares it with the previous months. It could also help users decide between two products so as to minimize their environmental footprint. Besides we would like to enrich our app such as the user will be able to position himself by comparing his consumption behavior with his neighbors. Actually, the aim would be to nudge users so that they would be incentivized to reduce the amount of trash they generate. If they see that their level of CO2 is much higher than its neighbor, they might be incentivized to change their consumption.

Incorporating other data Many products are thrown because people don’t pay attention to expiration dates. That’s why in the future we would like the QR code to also incorporate information about expiration date of the products. The app could then send reminders to the user that one product is about to expire. Each year, it is estimated that 20 kg of food per person is wasted, including 7 kg of packaged food.

Connecting with connected items Our app could also interact with other items, taking into account the opportunities that will be offered by the “internet of things”.

Intelligent garbage In the future, we can imagine to develop an intelligent trash which will be able to recycle automatically garbage depending on the content. The user will merely have the throw the garbage and select the item while the trash, knowing what is the item, will partition it and will sent the different parts to different containers depending on their material.

In addition, other devices such as fridges and other kitchen appliances could interact with our app and use the data collected. For example, the app could check whether an ingredient that is about to expire is still in the fridge, or could also help the consumer where is the best shelf to store his items.