Bintrack

A smart waste management platform that uses AI for bin tracking, blockchain for rewards, and facilitates carbon credit trading, while promoting sustainability

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🗑️ The Problem Bintrack Solves

We are building a Smart Waste Management System that makes waste disposal more responsible, accessible, and rewarding. Here’s what we’re creating:

  1. A web app where users can:
  • Locate nearby dustbins
  • Report new bin locations in their area
    1. Every bin reported by users will be verified through AI-based image analysis before being added to the map.
    2. Once verified, the user will receive virtual coins via blockchain as a reward.
    3. Users who dispose of garbage using mapped bins also earn rewards, encouraging sustainable behavior.
    4. We use AI to plan optimized waste collection routes, saving time, fuel, and operational costs.

🚧 Challenges We Ran Into

One of the biggest hurdles we faced was seamlessly integrating multiple technology domains—AI for bin verification, blockchain for rewards, IoT for real-time bin monitoring, and web/mobile interfaces—into a cohesive system.

Each component had its own complexities, and making them work together required extensive debugging and middleware development. For example:

  • Syncing the AI model's output with blockchain transactions involved creating custom APIs to bridge Python-based ML services with our Node.js backend and Solidity smart contracts.

⚡ Blockchain Hurdles

Managing gas fees on the Sepolia testnet was a major pain point. While developing the NFT reward system, we encountered:

  • Unpredictable spikes in transaction costs
  • Slow and expensive testing

Mitigation strategies:

  • Optimized smart contracts by batching user rewards
  • Used off-chain signature verification for minor actions
  • Settled only critical transactions on-chain
  • Built a gas fee estimator to alert users during high network congestion

📶 Connectivity & API Reliability

Connectivity issues caused crashes, especially during real-time bin tracking.

Solutions included:

  • Retry mechanisms with exponential backoff for failed requests
  • Implemented WebSocket fallbacks when REST APIs timed out
  • Added local caching to ensure app functionality even with spotty internet

🧪 Deployment Struggles

Deployment on Vercel was tricky due to:

  • Serverless function timeouts during blockchain interactions

💡 Lessons Learned

Despite these challenges, we persevered through:

  • Smart optimizations
  • Better error handling
  • Sheer determination

This experience taught us invaluable lessons in:

  • Cross-domain system design
  • Resource management
  • Teamwork under pressure

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