Plastic Reducer App
Creators: Jaydon, Lilah, and Mouhamadou
School: High School Students from Mouse Design League (DIIT) @ High School for Environmental Studies
About this Project
The project is an app that helps connect people to opportunities to clean their communities and make connections.
In this app, people can search and participate in clean-up event, which could include beach and park clean-ups. Users can add friends and interact with each other regarding upcoming opportunities, including organizing their own clean-up events.
Project Links
What the Judges are Saying
The app provides a way to join in on cleaning projects which is always a good thing. Very good idea!
Great job! Reducing waste in our shared green spaces in the city is such an important issue especially, as you point out, with summer coming up when we'll all want to be out and enjoying them! Your project made me think of a Meetup.com mash up with a sustainability angle. I liked that you mixed resources with the ability to act by volunteering or signing a petition. I wonder if you might be able to get additional traction by partnering with organizations that are already running clean-up events. For example, I know that NYC H20 does clean-ups at different beaches around the city. A social network that helps make our shared spaces better, how beautiful!
I'm very impressed with your design process and how you used design thinking to see a need and come up with a solution to fill that need... even pivoting (iteration, love it!) away from gamification to focus on users who believe in the cause. That's a great idea. 10 hard-core dedicated users who interact and use an app is better than 1000 who sign up and never use it.
Taking a look at the wireframes, your presentation was very good. I was able to quickly gain the context needed to understand the user interfaces (UI) I could see in Figma. These UIs were clean and very user-friendly. Well thought out. I loved that you even followed Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) principles like Fitts Law (basically where you put the navigation on the bottom of the UI, closest to a user's thumb)!
Another feature I liked was the ability for a user to create their own clean-up event. You all fleshed that user flow out really well too. Very easy to accomplish that goal. I wonder if integrating with social apps like Twitter, Instagram, etc would be a nice add-on? To help socialize an event to open up a custom event to other users outside of the creator's friends list?
To sum up, your idea solves a big problem very nicely. Nailed it actually, in my humble opinion as a designer and frontend developer who's created dozens of apps like this using design thinking. I could easily see myself getting excited to find a local clean-up and make a difference for my community and the environment. Kudos!
Taking a look at the wireframes, your presentation was very good. I was able to quickly gain the context needed to understand the user interfaces (UI) I could see in Figma. These UIs were clean and very user-friendly. Well thought out. I loved that you even followed Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) principles like Fitts Law (basically where you put the navigation on the bottom of the UI, closest to a user's thumb)!
Another feature I liked was the ability for a user to create their own clean-up event. You all fleshed that user flow out really well too. Very easy to accomplish that goal. I wonder if integrating with social apps like Twitter, Instagram, etc would be a nice add-on? To help socialize an event to open up a custom event to other users outside of the creator's friends list?
To sum up, your idea solves a big problem very nicely. Nailed it actually, in my humble opinion as a designer and frontend developer who's created dozens of apps like this using design thinking. I could easily see myself getting excited to find a local clean-up and make a difference for my community and the environment. Kudos!
My favorite thing about the Plastic Reducer App is that it takes a pervasive environmental issue and has created a simple solution for how people devoted to the cause can help heal the environment. I have often driven past beaches and seen plastic bottles littering the beach, and even I am sometimes at a loss for how I can help. From the list of events, contact list, and petitions, it has all of the tools that someone who’s passionate about recycling can use to make a difference. I also admire your design process and final prototype, and think that you came up with an intuitive app that can be an every-day tool for environment enthususiasts.
I think it’s a great idea to start with people who are already passionate about the environment. I do wonder if there is space for an educational aspect to the app to attract those who may not be passionate. I think it might be interesting to see if you could expand your user base to people who are “interested” but not “passionate” to make even more of an environmental impact.
Over all, I think that these students have thought about their target audience and built something that solves a user problem that would have social impact. I definitely don’t think they should stop here, though, since I think that even people beyond the super passionate could find value in it if they knew how to get involved.
I think it’s a great idea to start with people who are already passionate about the environment. I do wonder if there is space for an educational aspect to the app to attract those who may not be passionate. I think it might be interesting to see if you could expand your user base to people who are “interested” but not “passionate” to make even more of an environmental impact.
Over all, I think that these students have thought about their target audience and built something that solves a user problem that would have social impact. I definitely don’t think they should stop here, though, since I think that even people beyond the super passionate could find value in it if they knew how to get involved.
This is a great idea that harnesses social connection and community for a good cause. I love your design process and how you engaged your peers to conduct research into possible solutions. Plastic pollution is a huge issue affecting us all. I think in future work it would be great to think about what the next steps are once you have people organizing clean ups, could you use the information about the clean ups to document where there are high levels of plastic pollution and use that as data points in larger campaigns for systemic changes to environmental legislation. Think big! But this is a great first step and I applaud all the work you have done!
Community Feedback
quandale 👏 a High School Student
cool app
jesse 👏 a High School Student
fire application yo
👏 a High School Student from NYC
this was so good very helpful idea!!!!
👏 a High School Student
this really help save plastic
👏 a High School Student from America, New york
Great job （happy emoji)squared
👏 a High School Student
Great job
👏 a Teacher and/or Educator
Innovative and very useful
👏 a Teacher and/or Educator
Very useful
👏 a High School Student
helps the community
👏 a Middle School Student
Yay! :)
👏 a High School Student
creative, and provides ways to help the environment with others!
👏 a High School Student from NYC
if this was an app on the apple store, I would download it and use it - I like it!
👏 a High School Student from New York, NY
Great way to join like minded people together to help the community.
