Miami-Dade County launches innovation pilot with recycling app Scrapp

Dive Temporary:

• Creators of Scrapp, a recycling steering app, are kicking off the yr with a brand new pilot program in partnership with Miami-Dade County in Florida. The county has invested in a number of tech-centered improvements meant to spice up waste diversion as its inhabitants grows.
• Scrapp’s workforce is now working in earnest on scaling up its options for the county’s wants. That features updating the app with regionally-specific assortment day reminders, recycling steering and the potential to navigate the app in Spanish and Haitian Creole, amongst different options.
• The pilot is funded by a $100,000 grant from the Miami-Dade Innovation Authority, a nonprofit in collaboration with the county that invests in “early-to-growth stage corporations” to check and validate applied sciences. MDIA introduced in November the grant recipients who received its fifth public innovation problem, with this spherical centered on figuring out waste and recycling options that would profit the county.

Dive Perception:

Miami-Dade and the MDIA see these improvements as a key a part of a long-term plan to scale back the quantity of fabric despatched to disposal by 40%, MDIA stated. The county at the moment generates about 5 million tons of waste every year and has an estimated 37% recycling price.  

Additional complicating issues is the county’s longtime work to resolve how one can change its refuse-derived gas plant in Doral, which burned down in 2023. Officers are mulling the potential of constructing a brand new waste campus that would embrace an incinerator. 

The Scrapp partnership, which is separate from the waste campus challenge, was first introduced in November as a part of MDIA’s Public Innovation Problem. Clear Earth Improvements, which produces biochar from yard waste, and Fertile Earth Worm Farm, a composting firm, additionally acquired grants as a part of this system.

Scrapp goals to instantly interact with Miami-Dade residents and supply them with tailor-made, particular recycling data for his or her space, stated Mikey Pasciuto, Scrapp’s co-founder and chief sustainability officer. Scrapp can also be within the strategy of rolling out a number of different municipal deployments, and Pasciuto says the workforce will study from its work with Miami-Dade to tell future partnerships. 

Scrapp’s app platform is already accessible for customers throughout the U.S. to entry base options like interactive maps that time out recycling drop-off websites and a barcode function the place customers obtain recycling steering by scanning objects. 

By working carefully with Miami-Dade, Scrapp will be capable to supply expanded capabilities for residents there, comparable to instructional options, data on weather-related impacts and settings for commonly-spoken languages within the area.

Pasciuto says he’s excited for the corporate to tackle the problem of including capabilities for Miami-Dade’s 39 municipalities and unincorporated areas. “Everyone has totally different recycling schedules and wishes. We’ve labored with different municipalities earlier than, however this might be a primary for us by way of dimension,” he stated.

Scrapp finally goals to assist cut back recycling-related name quantity to Miami-Dade’s 311 data system by offering a centralized spot for recycling data, he stated. 

“That is the difficult half about waste, proper? Shoppers assume it is only one occasion managing the entire chain. On the waste aspect of issues, we perceive there’s extra to it: a hauler, a hauling firm, contracts with the municipality and, generally, a city recycling coordinator,” he stated. “When the chain of command feels so muddy, we wish one central system the place residents can get their solutions.” 

Scrapp first began within the dorms on the College of New Hampshire, and it has grown over greater than 5 years since, in response to the corporate web site. Scrapp’s most recognizable product is its consumer-facing app, however the firm does a whole lot of behind-the-scenes work amassing recycling and diversion information for a spread of various purchasers, together with shopper merchandise corporations and the New England Patriots.

“We’re analyzing all of their waste information at the back of home, after which working a procurement evaluation to know how they’ll design waste out of their methods,” Pasciuto stated.

The funding infusion from the MDIA grant is a vital useful resource, he added. The pilot applications which have come from that course of have helped the county consistently discover “sensible, sustainable options” to enhance its waste administration processes, stated Aneisha Daniel, director of the Division of Strong Waste Administration.