SMART Dustbin Bin-Ji
The Startup idea was a part of the "Principles of Entrepreneurship" course provided by the UQ Business School and taught by Dr. Russell Manfield.
The goal of the course is to come up with a startup idea that solves a customer need/problem and provide a financially feasible and viable solution.
My team named Raptors consisted of 7 humans - Angad, Anuradha, Ameya, Goutham, Sai, Shreya, and myself as the team leader.
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Problem Identified
Only about 50-55% of the recyclables get recycled each year in Australia. This is due to the improper segregation of recyclable and non-recyclable waste, leading to mixing and contamination. Contaminated waste cannot be recycled, thus, ending in landfills and polluting the environment.
The Issue with the Current Solution
The waste management companies collect, transport, dispose and recycle waste. The primary issue with this is the segregation is usually done at a large scale through methods that aren’t very efficient.
These methods include drum screens, eddy current separators, X-rays, and even manual sorting. To avoid this problem, the government introduced dustbins that separate the waste on a small scale.
But the issue with this is, even the segregated waste collected from domestics and commercial sources is contaminated in most situations and further needs to be segregated to be recycled or processed effectively. The below image shows how people failed to put the recyclable waste in the other bin.
Solution
SMART Bin - Self Monitoring Automated Route Trash Bin
Minimized landfill contamination: The technology used helps to eliminate contamination at an initial stage of waste disposal by 90%. Our automated bin will segregate the waste at the source itself, instead of dealing with the waste in bulk. The bin makes use of various sensors that detect the type of waste into three categories, recyclables (plastic, metal, paper, glass), organic (food products, plant cuttings, and clippings), and landfills. The bin takes one item at a time and automatically puts the detected waste into its respective bin.
Reduced operational cost: Bin-Ji uses sensor detection technology to identify which bin has currently reached its full capacity to limit the number of trips for waste collectors. The bin level can be tracked from a mobile/desktop app.
Reduced bin overfills: Each bin has a compactor that helps increase the amount of waste that can be stored in the bin to up to four times its original capacity. The compactor helps to compact the waste to 25% of its initial volume increasing the storage capacity of the bin.
Bin-Ji Design
Inspired from the Poland based startup, Bin-e, our Smart Dustbin’s name, Bin-Ji, was coined by one of our team members, Angad Singh Virk. The bin design was done by Sai Manaswi Reddy. Though this whole idea was inspired by Bin-e, Sai’s idea of Bin-Ji is a smaller, cylindrical bin with three comparments and a funnel.
Testing the Startup Idea
Hypothesis 1: The target customer needs a solution that reduces waste contamination and improves the recycling process.
Testing method: Talk to one of the potential customers. We approached managers and marketers from Suez, leading waste management firm in Australia
Result: We did the concept testing with Suez Australia. Team Raptors spoke to the Marketing Specialist, Ms. Marmoux, and Major Accounts Manager, Mr. Gore of Suez Australia. We contacted them with the help of UQ Waste Manager, Mr. Smit. In the conversation, the Suez team explained the problems with recycling due to contamination, and their aim to reduce carbon footprint. Our concept was very well received, and we were encouraged to pursue it. Also, as Suez is currently investing heavily in IoT and AI, the major suggestion was to include AI in the bin to sort waste in bulk.
Hypothesis 2: The end-users get confused while throwing the garbage into the right bin.
Testing method: Surveying and interviewing potential end-users (UQ community). Found volunteers to complete the survey and participate in interviews
Result: We conducted a survey and got 40 responses out of which 15 respondents indicated that they do get confused and end up throwing the waste in the wrong bin.
Hypothesis 3: The waste collectors find it difficult to clean the contaminated trash bins.
Testing method: Surveying the waste collectors at UQ. Talked to UQ Property Facilitator and find the waste collectors to complete the survey and interviews.
Result: We got five responses (due to work-time restriction) in which 4 of the respondents indicated that cleaning the bins is difficult.
Challenges
As all of us are from an engineering background, so most of our startup ideas (Low-cost 3D printing, flexible walking ramps, portable houses, etc.) were tech-based. The main challenge for us was to find the idea that was worth pursuing and validating. It took us 4 weeks (out of 12) to find the right idea, with a lot of research, and experimenting.
Personally, the daunting task for me was to get out of the building and talk to people! Also, for all of us, letting go of the bias, and asking open-ended questions was tough due to pre-made assumptions/answers that we wanted from the user. But, we put an effort to stop this by actively listening to the stories of customers and users, and asking questions from their experience.
Results
After analyzing the data, we developed a subscription-based business model for the venture, with each bin costing A$ 2,500 per year. We pitched our venture and business model thrice to prove the desirability, feasibility, and viability of the idea and submitted a report on this.
As a team, we scored distinction (75+) and got lauded as the most technically qualified team with deep engineering skills by Dr. Manfield and other tutors.