Hello everyone, my name is Vansh, and today I want to tell you a story….
I have been working on this project, and I have been working on the backend code for this. So this is basically the GSM part of the project and the smart bin part of the project. There are no tutorials for the project since it was my idea to make something like this, which is why I need to work on every single thing on my own. Beginning with the project, I had to figure out what and how to make, which is quite crucial in developing effective applications. So I jumped into a little bit of system design. I opened Excalidraw and made blocks to break it into parts and understand the project. Then I started writing down what to make first.
About the Project
I have been trying to think of making something related to mass waste management in cities, and this thing should somehow get solved with tech. So I decided to make ReGen. Now, this was something big and good for me. It is a—I don’t know how to explain it—let AI do this for me. Anyways, he’ll have to do this when it takes my job, hahah.
ReGen is a digital waste tracking and management system for gated communities, ensuring efficient waste segregation, collection monitoring, and recycling transparency. It aligns with the Swachh Bharat Mission & Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, making waste disposal more accountable and rewarding.
Now, let me tell you, the idea was simple—to combine IoT and Web Dev and make a digital waste system where we create smart dustbins that could sense what type of waste you’re keeping in them. (This is kind of like if dustbins could speak—fantasy, lol.) So these bins would be connected to central waste management authorities, where they could keep track of who on earth is disturbing the Swachh Bharat Mission by becoming an obstacle in it by not segregating the waste—namely, the wet and dry waste, which is good to separate the disposable waste and non-disposable.
This was one thing to take care of, and then there were other features. One is that each house with these bins will have a profile on the website, and when the waste collector comes to your house, they can enter your attendance for segregating the waste properly.
How Would This Work?
This will work with the help of AI. We could utilize the image processing capability of AI and train it in such a way to detect what kind of waste is in the picture and what kind of waste pictures to approve and what not to. This would help to keep track of places with over-smart people.
Also, since the collectors now need to mark the attendance at each house, this would help keep track of which houses are done, ensuring no area is left and that everyone sends the waste properly. The system records segregation accuracy and collection timestamps. Waste is categorized as wet, dry, hazardous and stored in a database.
This was a pretty good starting point for me, but my ADHD strikes, and I’m loving thinking more now. So this is where I came up with one more feature—there are houses where waste is not collected daily, and hence they throw it once every 2-3 days. So I wanted to make a feature through which the drivers get real-time data about which house to go to and which to skip today.
Except, I didn’t want to make it work through manual phone calls to each person in the society. So this would need some attention. See, this real-time data—where to go and where not to—is simple and can be made very easily, but the thing is where and how to get the data for this about the households.
This is where one of my close friends stepped in and told me something named IoT exists and can be utilized for the project. Then we needed to figure out how to make things work, and we also had one unwanted yet useful member in the process—The AI.
And we somehow managed to come up with the idea:
ReGen system tracks which bins are full and generates an optimized route for garbage collectors.
How would this optimized routes thing work? There is a route diagram attached, check it out.
This was the origin of GSM.
See, first of all, the name GSM has nothing to do with how it sounds. It will be a simple module to send data to the authorities, and this is done by smart bins, which is exactly why we need IoT. See, the smart bins are actually tracking the type of waste and level of filling.
How It Works:
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Smart bins equipped with GSM & IoT sensors will track:
- Fill Levels – How full a bin is in real time.
- Bin Location & Status – If it’s overflowing or needs collection.
- Segregation Check – Sensors verify if waste is mixed or sorted.
- GSM Modules send data to the ReGen dashboard, helping optimize waste collection routes.
So, that was pretty much what I have been working on and thinking about lately, apart from the other usual stuff. I made a few use flows on Excalidraw and a bit of system architecture to figure out what to make and how to connect things up. I am attaching a few pictures of the system, and also, I have pretty much the basic stuff ready.
- Landing Page
- Authentication Pages UI
- Backend for Auth
I have a lot to say, and these would make a few parts of the story. This was obviously the first, and I’ll talk about the development phase and what more happens in other parts of the story. Also, I am attaching the GitHub repo link. You can visit and comment on any piece of code if you’re interested—brainstorming is loved.
That’s all. Thank you.
Repo Link - https://github.com/0xfabb/ReGen
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