Waste Nothing | Devpost

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Inspiration

The inspiration for our project was during our research we discovered a site called TerraCycle which is an organization that is trying to make all products and packaging that people buy 100% biodegradable or recyclable. We were really inspired by this idea and wanted to create something that allows people to shop at their own comfort in stores that they know, and still help the environment.

What it does

Our project allows a customer to scan the barcode on any item that they are buying and learn what category of waste - recyclable, compostable, e-waste, or trash, it falls into. It will also provide them with locations that they can drop off the product once they are done using it. This allows the customer to make more educated decisions about the products that they buy. If possible, it'll also suggest some other products.

How we built it

We used multiple languages to make our project including Python, HTML, and CSS. We used Flask to make the framework for our website. To style our website, we use Tailwind and CSS. Finally, we used Pyzbar to scan our barcodes.

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges that we ran into were that Pyzbar wouldn't work on hosting services like Vercel and Heroku. We also had conflicting schedules that often inhibited our ability to meet properly. Pyzbar also had difficulty in scanning the barcodes as we had intended, so we had to spend a lot of time optimizing it. The site also would run very slowly when we started developing it and had to be optimized many times to work at the efficiency that we wanted.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Some accomplishments that we're proud of are that despite our troubles, we have achieved a success rate of 90 percent from scanning with Pyzbar. The site also now runs very quickly and looks good, in our opinion. Finally, we're really proud of our ability to give eco-friendly alternatives to the products that the customer is scanning that aren't recyclable.

What we learned

We learned how to use Gitpod, as it was the only thing we could find that would let us use Pyzbar and also make our site public. We also learned how barcode scanning works, and how to optimize it. We're especially proud of how well we used tailwind to deliver a site that is very visually appealing.

What's next for Waste Nothing

Our goal is now to improve the scanning software to be significantly more accurate. We would also find a reasonably priced API that has the most barcodes and products (looking at you, BarcodeSpider). Once we believe our product is of production quality, we would publish and release it. Once it has a userbase, we would attempt to reach out to the developers of the mobile checkout apps, and see if they would be willing to integrate our apps in order to deliver a more streamlined experience.

How to run the app

First, go to Gitpod Next, after the container has loaded, run "chmod +x run.sh" After that, run "./now.sh" Gitpod will now notify you that port 5000 is open, you should make it public and then open it. For a video on how to run it, click here