Inspiration
Many people do not know where to properly dispose of garbage. GrassRoots allows users to connect their location to help them find the nearest location for safe garbage disposal. GrassRoots is an environmental change initiative created to help the vigilant consumer (you!) find what you really need: a place to dispose of your used products, hassle-free. It's already hard enough to deal with cracked screens and unique plastics that say they are "recyclable," but aren't accepted by the recycling center in the area. GrassRoots makes recycling a step easier by providing an interactive map to recycling centers that suit your needs, whether that be e-waste or leaves, food-scraps, or just ordinary paper, GrassRoots is here. All you need is your zip code to finally say goodbye (and good riddance!) to your garbage.
What it does
Users simply enter their zip code on the home page to view an interactive location of garbage disposals near them.
How we built it
We used Wix as our main platform, HTML for adding a zip code search bar along with JavaScript to incorporate the map.
Challenges we ran into
Wix is a beginner-friendly platform, so it did not allow editing platform source code. Hence, we were limited in options that required more customization. Connecting to a database and pulling records from them was also not feasible for us, so we chose to stick to JavaScript. Finally, all of us are new to hackathons in general so it was a very surreal experience.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Jo is proud of seeing hundreds of map markers on the map (without having to manually enter them), while Mim is glad that she was able to use HTML/CSS to create a zip code bar.
What we learned
We learned that nothing can be perfect on the first try. We had so many ideas that we decided not to implement and realized that Agile Programming is better in the long run. Progress over perfection. Of course, we also learned a lot about trash, given that it is our topic.
What's next for GrassRoots
We see ourselves moving to a different web platform or creating a website ourselves in order to customize it. We also plan to add more features, such as a filter for cleaner, more concise results as well as update the website on statistics regarding annual waste and recycling.
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