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System for Compost Reporting: Automatic Plate Waste Statistics (SCRAPS)
- Program: Center for Leadership Education
- Course: EN.660.346 Multidisciplinary Engineering Design
- Year: 2025
Project Description:
20 percent of methane emissions come from food waste in landfills. Continuous, quantitative montoring is essential to managing and reducing food waste. We developed a data-driven solution that automatically collects and processes compost weights from post consumer plate waste in campus dining halls. Students scrape their plates into compost bins when they return their dishes; our system collects the ongoing weight of the bin without disrupting existing student and staff workflows. These data are visualized and analyzed with our user-friendly graphic user interface, which allows staff to extract insights to inform sustainability goals and operational decisions.
Project Photo:
Our solution consists of a scale connected to a Raspberry Pi and sits below compost bins. The scale transmits data to the Raspberry Pi. When the compost bin is emptied, our system computes the weight of compost collected. The total daily compost weights are visualized through a graphical user interface.
