First assignment of group n°059
Resources used by the team 059[modifier | modifier le wikicode]
First description of our project[modifier | modifier le wikicode]
First description of our project's idea
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1. What Problem do you want to solve ?
Natural resources and metals are non-renewable materials. Instead of recycling these resources, we just throw them. That’s called E-waste. E-waste (or Electronic waste) includes almost any household, business or daily item containing circuity or/and electrical components. It is also the number one fastest growing issue worldwide. As we are in a Digital Era, technology improves and the rate of using electronic devices is growing day after day. Billions of electronic items are produced each year as 60% of our E-waste ends up in landfills, where toxic items leach into the environment. More than 20 million tons of e-waste are produced every year. On the one hand, we’re throwing away tons of electronics because people don’t know how to fix them, and prefer buying new ones, while on the other hand millions of people need these electronic devices. We create too much e-waste and reuse way too little, that’s the problem we’re dealing with. There is the matter of the environment too, because waste may be harmful for our planet (toxic). It can destroy the ecosystem. Furthermore the intensive production of firms highly contaminates the ecosystem. Health is also an important matter because wastes are often bounded to health degradation. Nowadays, you have to go to different places to recycle your waste.
2. Why does this problem exist?
We’re in a Digital Era, and the technology improves faster than old days. Years ago, people used to buy items and gadgets to last a lifetime, but then, products get improved (new features, more powerful tools…) every year or two with new technology. Since people need to keep up to date, they throw their electronic products right after they’ve bought new ones. We can also mention the planned obsolescence by some companies in order to continue selling their improved products. Nowadays, companies mainly aim to make the bigger profit possible, with more and more competition in every sector. Their goal is to innovate quickly to be the better on the market. This is possible because their products are programmed not to work after a certain period of time. Marketing plays a great role in this waste; indeed it creates the customer’s needs in some ways. Firms are more preoccupied by having the maximum customers in their shops than offering products with better quality / time lasting. Currently, the access to recycling isn’t easy. In other words, you have to go through the public administration (to ask your recycling’s member card, often a waste of time, then you got to pay, and you have to take in account the recycling center’s schedule,...)
3. What breakthrough are you commited to creating?
We want to make the access to recycling for the people easier, i.e. gathering at the same place every type of waste (furniture, e-waste, plants and others). So you won’t have to go to different places to recycle your waste. Waste can’t be placed everywhere, so recycling is a solution to minimize this problem of space. Recycling and a greener environment mean less health hazards for future generation and us. The concept of recycling appliance already exists, but not according to our personal vision. We want to create an intuitive platform, which could allow to recycling easier all appliances, with a better organization. We also plan to create an incentive motivation. It means for every waste you give us; you receive a certain amount of points (depending on the weight, size, type of the waste). You can use these points later to have a discount in partners’ shops on furniture or whatever you want to buy (to replace what you have dumped).
