Category: Coding Chosen theme: Climate Preservation Name of team: The Waste Warriors Participant name one: Libby Sheleg, libby@sheleg.family Participant name two: Sofia Sherbakova, sofia.sherbakova16@gmail.com Project name: WasteLess Introduction and Purpose A need to solve the problem of climate change is especially eminent in today’s functioning society. Notably, one of the main factors contributing to such is food waste. For many years, wasting food has been an ever-growing issue in daily life. For example, how many times have you let something expire in the fridge or left a fruit rot on the counter? This is primarily due to forgetting to eat the food before it goes off, or the high demand of consumers for foods to be ‘perfect'. Because of this, one-third of food produced globally is wasted; about 1.3 billion tonnes of food that is never eaten. Primarily, food waste in landfills rots and releases methane (CH₄ Greenhouse Gas) into the atmosphere, which leads to a direct consequence of climate change and global warming. In fact, about 11% of all the greenhouse gas emissions that are released from the food system could be reduced if we stop wasting food. WasteLess - the name of our proposed mobile platform - is a user-friendly application that aims to minimize food waste in households around the world. Put simply, WasteLess ensures that every food in the household is eaten by the expiry date and saves precious time and resources. Market Research The idea of an app to minimise food waste is not entirely new to the market, although the app tackles the issue in a way other apps on the market are lacking. Compared to similar products, Wasteless is primarily directed to households; whilst other food waste apps focus on larger-scale projects such as supermarkets and neighbourhoods. We specifically chose to target households because individuals are more likely to utilise the product than industrial companies. Furthermore, once individuals are familiar with the impact that wasting food makes on the planet, they may feel a greater need to change their approach to food consumption in their personal life. Not only this, but over one-third of wasted food is thrown away by households, making this demographic an ideal target to desirably benefit from the product. Target Demographic Ideally, the main target users of WasteLess are consumers who will use the mobile application in their households. These are likely more environmentally conscious adults or teenagers interested in climate preservation. However, in the future, WasteLess will be accessible for 1 everyone with a mobile phone to use on a regular basis. To meet the wants of such demographic, the app needs to be easy to use and navigate, as well as have a wide database of food items to choose from when selecting products. To provide a larger scope of consumer feedback, a Google Form was made and sent to individuals that showed interest in using WasteLess if it were produced. After providing a short description of the project with a range of questions regarding features, usefulness, ways to enhance the app, etc. The main proposed idea to improve the app was to add dietary requirements (i.e. vegetarian, vegan, allergy warnings) to the recipe inspiration, which would benefit consumers with these dietary restrictions. Benefits and Current Status Ultimately, if the problem of food waste was solved through WasteLess, we would be satisfied with our goal of helping assist the efforts of climate preservation. However, before this can be done, there needs to be some refinement to the mobile application. Currently, WasteLess is a working prototype with the three pages (as discussed below) executed for a School’s Science and Technology Fair. However, the application contains various bugs that need to fixed, and other features that need be improved functionally such as the notification intervals. Other enhancements that could to be done to the app include: - Removing singular items off rather than the entire list. - A larger collection of food products. - More recipe options with different dietary restrictions. - A bigger variety of categories, focusing on faster-perishable foods. - Making the application compatible with IOS and other devices. Main Features and Development Plan As a background to WasteLess, the app maker used to develop the product is Android Studio. Android Studio has options to code using Java or Kotlin, and we have coded with Java in the past. An Android mobile will be used to run and test the app, as Android Studio is only compatible with Android devices and not IOS (Apple). The three main features of the application: Page 1 - Adding items to the list: Here, the user can select the name of the food in their pantry, and the foods also consist of a description of their expiry (i.e. “Apple - Lasts 7 Days On the Counter.”) Coding Plan: This was done using a Spinner and an Array list, where the user selects from different categories (“FRUITS AND VEGETABLES,” “DAIRY PRODUCTS,” etc.) and the list opens a dropdown menu - here will be the names and description of various foods within that category. (Note: this dropdown can be further expanded into a variety of food products, however, to maintain the simplicity of the application the platform will only start with a few). They select their desired one and click the ‘+’ icon. This image button automatically takes the 2 consumer to their list, using the ‘Catch Exception’ statement. At the same time, the food name will be added to the database. Page 2 - List View of Items: On this page the consumer can see all of the items on their list, and select any they want to delete (i.e. if the item has already been used in their household). Coding Plan: Once the application brings the user to the second page after selecting a food item, they see a clear view of all of the items previously added. On this page, there will also be a ‘recycling bin’ (as previously mentioned) that selects items to be deleted from the database. After this, there will be a short message appearing (possibly a ‘snackbar’) that reads, “Item(s) Deleted!”) Page 3 - Recipe Inspiration: The third page of the app contains recipe ideas so the user can utilize their nearly expired food to make into a recipe or use the recipe inspiration for a different meal. Coding Plan: This is done using a searchbar - the viewer is able to search for recipes using the name of the food (i.e. “Apple.”) Following this, the application will come up with a variety of recipes containing that keyword, perhaps from an external website that has a plethora of recipes with different dietary restrictions. From here, if it is of interest to the consumer, they can press the name of the recipe or the photo, and it will direct them to the platform with the full recipe. Extra Feature: Daily Notification: The app will notify the user every 24-hours to make sure that the foods on their list do not expire, and upon pressing the notification it will send them to the ‘Recipe Inspiration’ in which they can find various recipes to include their expiring food in. Coding Plan: This was fairly simple to execute be done using an ‘AlarmManager’ and an ‘AlarmReciever’, which will notify the user every interval throughout a set period of time (earlier established). This feature is of relative importance as without the notification, the consumer may possibly forget about the foods that they enter and may end up throwing it away! WasteLess Folder Resources: (including mockups, code, other planning aspects). https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZFUFaoVf-pztAO11zwuVtnkH7ZVrGK1E?usp=sharing Ideal Outcomes In conclusion, we strongly believe that WasteLess has the potential to become a user-friendly mobile application to change our mindset to food waste - one household at a time. Through this, we can then shift our approach towards climate preservation and creating a greener future for generations to come. Out of 10, the success evaluation of our application is an 8 - we have built a strong foundation and have feasible aims to carry out over the course of the hackathon. 3