🌿 Inspiration
Illegal waste dumping is a silent crisis in Indian cities. We've all seen overflowing garbage, dumped construction debris, or medical waste on roadsides — but had no simple way to report it or know if anything was done. We built DumpWatch to bridge that gap between concerned citizens and municipal authorities.
🗺️ What it does
DumpWatch is a community-powered waste reporting platform that lets:
- Citizens report illegal dump sites in under 60 seconds with location, category, and photo
- Municipal officials view, assign, and resolve complaints through a dedicated dashboard
- Everyone track complaint progress through 4 stages: Reported → Under Review → Cleanup Assigned → Resolved
🛠️ How we built it
Frontend — React.js with localStorage for data persistence, custom CSS design system
Backend — Spring Boot REST API with JWT authentication and role-based access control
Database — MySQL with JPA/Hibernate for automatic schema management
Security — BCrypt password hashing, JWT tokens, Spring Security filter chain
🚧 Challenges we faced
- Designing a clean role-based system where citizens and officials see completely different dashboards
- Building a real-time status tracker that updates complaint progress visually
- Structuring the Spring Boot security config to protect admin routes while keeping public routes open
- Making the UI responsive and intuitive enough that anyone could file a report in under 2 minutes
📚 What we learned
- Full-stack integration between React frontend and Spring Boot backend using JWT
- Importance of UX in civic tech — if reporting is hard, people won't do it
- How to structure REST APIs with proper role-based authorization
- Building for real-world impact, not just technical complexity
🚀 What's next
- GPS-based live location tagging on complaints
- AI waste detection from uploaded photos
- Heatmap visualization of high-risk dump zones
- Mobile app (Android/iOS)
- Email/SMS notifications for citizens when status updates
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