C4 - My RightCycle by Kimberly-Clark Professional

Inspiration

With the outbreak of COVID-19, PPE became a necessity for everyone. However, the surging amount of plastic waste arose as one of the most concerning issues at the moment in the global community and this has urged the need for an innovative way to keep track of consumers’ carbon footprints. Although our team consists of 4 undergraduate students enrolled in 4 different programs, we share the same passion for creating innovative technology that leads to a sustainable future. Our team loved the idea behind the RightCycle program by Kimberly Clark and wanted to take part in this wonderful initiative.

What it does

There are four options in our application: About RightCycle, Estimate My RightCycle, Creating My RightCycle, and Tracking My RightCycle.

When the user clicks on “About RightCycle”, there is a page with a general explanation of the program with a self-explanatory video on top. An FAQ page is also provided which answers the most common questions asked by the users.

Besides, when the user wants to estimate the carbon footprint left by each product, the user can click on “Estimate My RightCycle”. This will generate an estimation for individual products to be sent to the RightCycle facility for carbon footprint reduction.

Another option on the home page is “Create My RightCycle”. On this page, the user can fill out the necessary information to make a shipping label and send their used product to one of the recycling facilities. Once the shipping labels have been made, the labels will be displayed on the app as well as sent via email. We also integrated QR codes in the labels so the users could have access to the tracking information in multiple ways.

Through the “Tracking My RightCycle” button, the users can access the tracking page where both methods could be utilized to know the progress of the carbon footprint reduction. The first way is to access it via the unique tracking number provided on the label. If the shipment had already arrived at the facility, the exact weight will be measured and we will be able to provide the current carbon footprint.

How we built it

We built the UI/UX design for our application with Velo by Wix and Figma.

Challenges we ran into

We now understand why Hackathons are called Hacka”thons”. This project was indeed a marathon. We were able to finish this project after over 12 hours of rigorous meeting on Zoom and this came as a surprise for many of us. We also had to work with software that we’ve never used before so we really had to teach ourselves as we were doing this project. Every step was a hurdle for everyone but we can say for sure that we learned a lot from it!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud of the wireframe that we made for our application. Even though it was our first time using Velo by Wix and Figma, it was a rewarding learning opportunity for us, as it has allowed us to gain practical skills on our own. We are happy that we have successfully completed this marathon!

What we learned

We learned that our society used a large amount of PPE during the COVID pandemic and is still using a large amount of PPE. A large amount of PPE disposal without recycling can lead to an increased amount of CO2 emission which can affect our environment. We should be aware that our small behavior of throwing PPE can damage our environment egregiously, and should try to recycle those.

What's next for My RightCycle by Kimberley-Clark Professional

Kimberly-Clark Professional could expand the My RightCycle service by affiliating with different facilities all around the world, which can lead to a larger reduction in CO2 emission.