RE-SEEK-LOW

What it does

It is a machine that will accept empty beverage containers made of plastics, aluminum, and glass from users and return rewards depending on the type and quantity of the material deposited. This will encourage people to properly dispose and recycle.

Your inspiration

Driven by the growing amount of unrecycled waste and related opportunities to recycling, designing cost-effective and customizable RVMs that will fit local settings and use technological advancement become a popular and rewarding alternative. Partnerships and work opportunities to the local communities in the logistics and post-processing stage of the collected items, local manufacturing using local materials, advertisements, data gathering and usage, and use of renewable energy as the unit's main power source for off-grid deployment then becomes possible.

How it works

Unlike a typical vending machine where users deposit cash in exchange for the product, the reverse vending machine accepts recyclable materials in exchange for a reward through various reward schemes. Artificial intelligence will help classify the material type and automatically place it to its corresponding recycling bin. When these bins reach their threshold, an alert signal will be sent for them to be picked-up and emptied. The proposed design will initially focus on accepting used and empty beverage containers, particularly plastics, glass, and aluminum materials, which will then be expanded to accommodate a wider range of recyclable items of various shapes and sizes. The reward system will initially use existing stored value contactless cards that is often used in local transaction activities in the country, particularly in transportation. This will then be expanded to accommodate mobile wallets and other authorized online transaction systems.

Design process

Currently, it is in its planning stage as various approach to designing and developing the system are being considered. An initial 3D model was already made to help visualize the system. Further technology research and market analysis is being made together with the evaluation of the computer vision and machine learning approach that can be employed to accurately classify the deposited item with the least amount of time. The design on the control and power management subsystem is also on-going. Various constraints in determining the components and materials to be used are being considered to provide the most cost-effective and sustainable solution.

How it is different

Existing RVMs use barcode scanners and/or various sensors to detect and classify the material. These limits the versatility of the detectable materials and will require thorough maintenance and calibrations to properly function. With artificial intelligence, various materials can then be classified using cameras and then automatically segregated. Currently in the Philippines, there’s no commercially available RVMs. Customizable RVMs will then be designed and developed using locally outsourced materials to suit the local demand and further lower the unit cost. Each unit will base its features on the utilization need in the area. It will also serve as an advertisement tool to utilize its available and exposed surface areas. The reward scheme will initially employ contactless cards, mainly used in mass transportation, since the initial target users are commuters that will dispose used and empty beverage containers.

Future plans

Prototyping and series of testing and evaluation will be the next step to create commercial unit. The reward scheme will be enhanced and a platform to store rewards and record transaction details will be developed as an alternative to the contactless cards. Units that uses RE sources such as solar panels as a primary power source will also be developed. Monitoring, data gathering capability, and IoT applications are also avenues since various sensors for both waste and non-waste data can be integrated in each unit. Cellular and WiFi signal boosting features will also be integrated depending on the location of the deployed unit.

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