TrashIt API
A dedicated source of information for sorting waste.
In which bin plastic bags go? Where does a cork tap goes? How about a bulb?
Waste sorting can be very confusing, especially as it changes from country to country sometimes even between city to city!
No national law mandates recycling in the U.S.
As a consequence different states often introduce their own recycling requirements with no relation to each other. Country to country, municipality to municipality, sometimes even within cities. The colors of the bins, the types of containers, the symbols and the signs are not consistent and not uniform. Some places don’t have established collection set up (most offices for example). This led to the idea of creating a place that gathers information, and can act as a open resource. The API contains a long list of items linked to pictures and to the correct bin.
Goals of the API
- A searchable database online.
- An open database that changes and grow through user input.
- A place of information that will clarify a complex system and infrastructure (end users interact with only a small part of it).
- A tool to consult with and to clarify confusions.
- A tool for creative use of it’s information.
- An educational resource to bring awareness and behavior change.
Trashit API is online!! Deployed to cloud9 and uses node.js.
Source code is on github.
Ideas for possible uses:
A search engine, supported by an API that has all the information about recycling – user will input a word (possibly a phrase) of a thing to be tossed and will output a result of the right bin, the material its made of, the process of recycling it, if not recyclable – the reason it cannot or would not be recycled, related things that go in that bin.
Educational usage – quizzes as an online form, educational games could use the API to construct questions and answers.
Oryan Inbar ITP NYU 2015
*this project is a part of an ITP class, programming A2Z by Daniel Shiffman.