Disposing Realm is delivering the Brooklyn community with a fun way of cleaning up street litter through participation in a point system, incentivizing users to be active participants in the beautification of Brooklyn streets.
We serve the people of Brooklyn that want to decrease littering in the borough.
Disposing Realm is a social-media-based application that allows users to earn rewards by creating posts and sharing pictures of them properly disposing of litter in Brooklyn streets. Users earn points for every post, can comment on, and view others’ recycling experiences spreading awareness about our power to beautify Brooklyn.
Littering is a common occurrence throughout public streets and areas. It results in the visual decay of our communities, attracting pests, and can be hazardous to live in. In Brooklyn, trash is everywhere with “subway riders…tossing candy wrappers and soda cans on the sidewalk…” (Berger, 2011), leaving business owners susceptible to city fines and contributing to the litter problem affecting communities, neighborhoods, and quality of life.
According to a research study conducted by Keep America Beautiful (KAB), ” 15% of the variance in littering behavior results from contextual constraints (e.g., insufficient number of receptacles, existing litter on the ground), while the remainder results from the individual (e.g., lack of motivation)“(KAB, 2009). Existing litter combined with a lack of motivation results in an expected behavior of individuals not correctly disposing of and contributing to existing litter. This domino effect will never end until we start acting and being conscious about reducing litter around our community. These day-to-day observations of trash and waste piling bring dismay and deterioration, seeing them with our eyes. Thus, solutions like informing the users about recycling, litter stop signs, and fines are not enough.
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Berger, Joseph. “Fighting Litter in Brooklyn by Getting Rid of the Litter Baskets.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 June 2011,
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/nyregion/brooklyn-tries-fighting-trash-by-removing-baskets.html
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Littering Behavior in America - Keep America Beautiful. 1 Jan. 2009,
Brooklyn has tried to solve the street littering problem through fines, signs, and even by eliminating litter baskets from city streets. However, none of these solutions have helped the problem; however, Brooklyn streets continue to be filled with garbage. Additionally, these solutions to the Brooklyn litter problem cause more problems like increased garbage or are unrealistic due to the needed manpower to enforce rules and regulations around fines.
Disposing Realm targets user motivation by incentivizing users to pick up litter in Brooklyn streets and public areas while earning points. The application promotes action every time users upload an image or video of them cleaning up streets by mimicking a game experience that leads to rewards. Users can challenge one another to remove as much litter as possible, comment on posts, and earn badges for their efforts.
Technical challenges are implementing an item-based point system feature that awards different numbers of points for different types of litter, verifying posts and litter removal, finding a map API that shows Brooklyn neighborhood by litter concentration, and authorization for JWT in the backend connecting to the front end with REACT.
Implementing a leaderboard for tracking achieving goals or milestones, integration across other applications, adding a friend system, and requesting a litter basket.