He Songchi, Pranay S. Mohnot, Teng Chen Liang, Teo Wei Jie Shaun, Wang Ziyun
Academic Advisor: Mr. Lim Cheng Puay
Consumers are straining landfills with massive amounts of waste and incessantly buying products with significant carbon and water footprints. Motivated by a stagnant recycling rate in Singapore, we have launched a Telegram peer-to-peer trading channel for NUS students and staff. On this platform, members can list items for donation and claim items already listed via simple messages. A survey conducted to gauge the receptivity of students to such a platform yielded promising results as over 80% of respondents showed interest in donating or using second-hand items. A large proportion of respondents also reported disposing of various usable items every semester, signaling the potential of such a platform. While similar trading platforms already exist, our project differentiates itself as it increases the accessibility of such a service by implementing it in a popular messenger application. Since the launch of our Telegram channel, we have facilitated multiple item transfers and amassed over 50 members. All claimants indicated that they were satisfied by the condition of items received and if not for this platform, 75% of them would have gone on to buy a similar new item elsewhere. Reinforcing our promise of convenience, all transfers were made in RVRC and were completed at least 18 hours faster than the fastest transaction on the pre-existing trading platform. We have successfully met our objective of sparking joy through the sharing of used items and fostered an awareness of the potential of item upcycling.
Keywords: waste management; online applications; circular economy