Stem4Free is proud to announce a partnership with Ctrash, a website using computer vision to facilitate data collection on littering patterns.
Founded by Davin Jeong, a student at Phillips Academy Andover, Ctrash was born out of his experiences at Heal the Bay beach cleanups, where he picked up trash and jotted the names down on a piece of paper. Realizing that his experiences with machine learning may facilitate this process, he developed an application that can automatically detect and categorize pieces of trash, making it easier for volunteers to find trash and collect the relevant information.
Ctrash’s website, www.c-trash.com, showcases the concept, with an image-based upload system and a map-viewer of the database. Currently relying on a dataset of 1500 trash images for their machine learning application, they plan to extend this proof-of-concept as they partner and test their application with other nonprofits.
Stem4Free will work with Ctrash to develop a food waste application for its own data collection and food awareness efforts. In the next calendar year, the partnership hopes to enable precise breakdowns of food types on Stem4Free’s branch pages and to begin beta-testing an image-based input tracker for community members outside of the organization to contribute their own data. It hopes that, through their joint collaboration, they may make it easier for anyone to contribute to the community’s understanding of waste and its detrimental impacts.
