The Mission
Motivation
Hello! I'm Zahra Rizvi, a sophomore in York High School at Yorktown, Virginia. I am the founder of the mission called Clean Coastal Virginia, and the creator of the Clean Coastal Virginia mobile app.
When the pandemic hit hard, I was staying at home most of the time. I started to walk around my neighborhood to get some physical exercise. I noticed the amount of litter in my neighborhood. At that time, I wondered how I can use technology to help motivate people to keep the environment clean. I looked around for a solution that was convenient and efficient but could not find one. This inspired me to think of a new mission – Clean Coastal Virginia, and a new app - Clean Coastal Virginia.
According to a national study, last year United States taxpayers spent nearly $11 billion cleaning up litter across the US, ten times more than the cost of trash disposal. I was born and raised in Coastal Virginia, and its aesthetic and recreational values of the Chesapeake Bay, rivers, beaches, and marine resources have been adversely affected by littering.
I’ve addressed a specific problem in this app: How technology, crowdsourcing and in-situ information can empower individuals to make a significant and noticeable impact on the environment?
The Clean Coastal Virginia App (Android)
Using the app, photograph a piece of litter. Next, the app automatically geo-tags the picture, and its machine learning tool recommends tags for the kind of litter. Confirm the tags to help the app keep learning. If the app can’t figure it out, then simply type it. Remember to discard the litter properly!
Share a post in your social media apps of your choice to invite or challenge your friends to help keep your street, neighborhood, school grounds, or city clean.
The Smart Litter Grabber
While developing this app, I realized that just taking pictures along with properly discarding litter is a bit inconvenient. So, I designed a Smart Litter Grabber that works with my app.
I took an ordinary trigger-handle grabber with a squeeze trigger. I added a Bluetooth button to its trigger and secured a phone holder. Wala!! Now the app automatically takes and geo-tags the pictures every time you pick a litter using the Smart Litter Grabber.
Data Analytics
The data analytics section shows you the history and a breakdown of your efforts in several charts. If you are an administrator, you are shown entire data and suggestions of the locations that would be optimal for recycling, garbage, and trash cans on the streets.
Congressional App Challenge 2021
The Clean Coastal Virginia app is now an entry to the Congressional App Challenge 2021.
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Chesapeake Bay Program
EPA works with federal and state agencies, non-profit organizations and academic institutions to coordinate restoration of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed through the Chesapeake Bay Program.