LearnToRecycle: household waste detection and recycler finder mobile application

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become deeply embedded in daily life, offering numerous benefits and challenges across various domains, including education. AI-driven technologies in environmental education are indeed practical, since it supports the methods of experiential learning, building ecological awareness, and social responsibility. This project proposes the LearnToRecycle mobile application, which is designed within the advanced concept of improving household waste management. This application integrates YOLOv8, an AI-powered object detection algorithm to classify detected waste into categories such as paper, plastic, cardboard, glass, and metal. It is further enhanced with a geolocation feature using the Google Maps API, enabling users to conveniently locate nearby recycling facilities based on their current location. The initiative aims to address environmental current processes such as passive environmental education and low public awareness about recycling. This can encourage learning about proper waste sorting and sustainability practices, using an enjoyable method especially appealing to youngsters (children and adolescents) for developing eco-friendly behavior. In this way, it strengthens the correct ways of waste separation practices for an educational experience for users and contributing to the goal of environmental sustainability. The development process adopted an Adapted Waterfall methodology, which involved five phases including requirement analysis and data collection, design, implementation, testing, and documentation. The LearnToRecycle model achieved 89.1% accuracy in performance testing. The SUS results from 30 respondents yielded a score of 78.92, corresponding to the “Good” adjective rating. Future work includes expanding datasets to improve detection accuracy and reliability in real-world applications. More features such as game and specialized chatbot could also be added for further enhancement of the application.