Waste Warriors Of India

Struggling To Find The Nearest Dustbin? A 16-Year-Old From Mumbai Has A Wonder App To Make Waste Disposal Easy

16-year-old Rishy Rane from Mumbai has developed an App titled ‘Garbo- A Dustbin Finder’ on which a user can locate the nearest bin in Mumbai on an Android phone

Mumbai: How many times have you casually thrown a wrapper, bottle or a chips packet only because you couldn’t find a bin? Even those with the best intentions may have indulged in littering in public areas and blamed the government for not keeping enough bins. To stop people from making excuses and littering, 16-year-old Rishy Rane from Mumbai has developed an App titled ‘Garbo- A Dustbin Finder’ to help a user locate the nearest bin on a smart phone. The unique idea of developing ‘Garbo’ came to Rishy when he was recently out with his friends in South Mumbai area.

‘Garbo- A Dustbin Finder’ app can help people in Mumbai locate their nearest dustbin

I was out with friends and we wanted to discard a few food packets. We walked almost for 15 minutes but couldn’t find a bin. That’s when I realised that bins are mostly located in prime areas and even if the bins are there in small congested lanes, one cannot see them, Rishy tells NDTV.

Also Read: A Letter From ‘India’ To You – Please Don’t Litter!

It was during the same time when he was looking for ideas to develop an app of his own,

I always wanted to develop an app that would help the regular people. What better than helping people find a bin and eliminate the litter menace.

From venturing out in different parts of the island city, studying the conditions of bins and their locations to working on the technical aspects of the app round the clock, Rishy took nearly three weeks to design and launch ‘Garbo’.

100 bins across the city are now marked on his app. Friends and family from different regions of the city downloaded the app, went out, clicked pictures, marked the locations and forwarded them to Rishy,

The app is not confined to the maker, anyone can make a contribution and help the app grow. I had asked my friends and relatives to mark public bins from their respective localities and send a request to pin them on the app. Once I got their requests on mail, I approved the bin locations and pinned them on Google Maps, explains Rishy, a student of DY Patil International School, Worli.

100 bins across Mumbai have been pinned on Rishy Rane’s app

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The app has multiple features. On opening the app, a user has to simply click on ‘Find The Nearest Bin’ and bins located within the radius of 1 kilometre will pop up on the app. In case there are no bins, the app will further give an option to the user to continue navigating and go beyond a kilometer.

People can contribute by adding a bin from their locality

The app also has ‘Add A New Bin’ option for people to include a public dustbin which isn’t there on the app. All one has to do is click a picture and press the send button. Once Rishy approves, the bin will be added on the map.

The app, which is presently available only on Android phones, was launched last week and so far, it has got 214 downloads. 30 people have reviewed the apps and applauded the teen for his noble initiative.

To enhance the number of bins on his app, Rishy will soon approach the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), “The BMC will certainly have all the information regarding public bins places across the city. With a help from them, I aim to increase the existing number of bins on the app,” adds Rishy.

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