The idea
Most people are willing to recycle. What stops them is two small questions: how do I sort this, and where do I take it? Recyclops is an Android app I built in 2022 to answer both on the spot, and to reward people with points so the habit sticks.
What it does
A user picks up an item and checks how to sort it, or scans its barcode with the phone camera to look it up. When the bag is full, the app finds the nearest recycling point and routes them there with Google Maps. Every recycling action earns points.
How I built it
I built it as a native Android app in Kotlin, with Firebase as the backend. Recycling points are often in places with a weak signal, so the app works offline: each action is saved on the device first and syncs to Firebase once the connection is back. Nothing a user does gets lost because of a bad connection.
How it went
The app covers the full loop, from sorting an item to dropping it off and getting points for it, and it keeps working where the signal drops. The source code is public on GitHub.