The challenge is in today's established society; no one treats water with the value it should be associated with. In developing countries, water is a gif; here in NL a fundamental human right but with no consequences for consumerism.The problems solution is involving the communities more and restoring the right mindset on how water should be treated and I propose a solution that is involving but also feasible due to its small step approach. Reducing the amount of wastewater daily produced involves technological improvements, but these only come along if there is a willingness in society to accept that change is inevitably necessary. Therefore, it makes sense to look at habitual behavior for trash collection in cities with data collection efforts and invoke small changes noticeably but not too noticeable. After that companies can be involved in the scope of pubic opinion.

Water quality is linked with pollution. Therefore I propose a simple app to report empty and full trash cans that associate trash levels with water levels. Connecting people's perception of water to their actions with a reward system for recycling is only part of the greater idea. Every time you throw a cigarette onto the ground or into water that creates a bigger challenge for water recapturing efforts than necessary. Energy and resources that could be designated to developing new innovative technologies are held back from wasteful consumerism and costs for goverments and companies providing water exponentially rise. To escape the loop we are in giving people the option to recycle properly has not been fully tested. While developmentllenge I am only proposing an App to change hopefully the habits of people when they are in the city, the further plan is to work with the data collected and create machine learning and AI infrastructures that make trash collection more efficiently but much more importantly change the bins to exactly what is needed at the trash bin location. This information is already invabluable for private trash companies and they could be development partners. One step further ahead New technologies could enable us to sort trash on site directly and does not require a multiple bin solution. The vision is a bin with one opening. AI's sort trash based on image recognition software and material analysis sensors. These are steps that we would like to take at a later stage further into the development of which more collaboration with enthusiastic companies is needed. Communities should not think about the complexities of separating trash, they should think about the consequences it has if they do not do it. Enabling people to do so with a simple app is only the first step. But give it a positive spin and tell people how much water they can save by not trowing their cigarettes on the ground because they don't know the next suitable trash can is 20m around the corner might just give us a head start. In small steps/baby steps and with available technology the mindset of everyone can be changed.

Huishoudens, Openbare ruimtes, Natuur, Industrie

Change your trashattude (for the sake of water)