Final Project Brainstorm: Food Waste Reducer

01 Apr 2025

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Overview

The problem: Food waste is a growing issue not only on the UH Manoa Campus but worldwide. A lot of students understand how food waste impacts our environment, but many do not take the initiative to do anything about it. Students often have leftover food from dorm fridges, social events, or meal prepping that ends up getting thrown away. Meanwhile, many students also face food insecurity and could benefit from receiving free or shareable food—if only there were a way to connect the two sides. There’s currently no UH-focused system to redistribute food, share extra meals, or even track one’s food waste impact in a way that’s fast, safe, and community-centered.

The solution: Creating a web platform that enables students to log in:

• Share or claim leftover food from students in nearby dorms or apartments.
• View current listing of free food
• Tracking their food waste reduction effort

Special sauce: When you log in, you can log in as an admin, contributor, or regular account. We also include a point system to let users accumulate points to earn prizes. Administrators can delete posts that violate user guidelines.

Approach

This app will provide a simple, user-friendly website focused on sharing, tracking, and learning about food sustainability within the UH student community. There will be three types of users:

Users can log in to post or claim food and log their waste reduction.

Contributors (such as clubs or dorm leaders) can post larger food drop-offs from events or community fridges.

Admins can approve contributor roles, moderate listings, and update featured sustainability resources.

Each food item will include an expiration estimate, pickup location (e.g., Hale Aloha lounge), and optional image upload. Users can also set preferences for food types or allergies and receive notifications when suitable posts go live.

Names of the proposers

• Kimi Li
• Ruhi Pirnia
• Naydel Espiritu
• Jaylin Morimoto
• Ka’ili Benavente
• Lou Rae Robles

Mockup Page Ideas

• Landing page
• Food Listings page (filtered by “just posted,” “expiring soon,” “near you”)
• Post a Bite (upload food to share, required “location” “title” “description” optional “picture”)
• Dashboard (view your stats, saved bites, and impact log)
• Contributor dashboard (bulk post for events or orgs)
• Profile page (food preferences, points, food saved history)
• Request page (if someone wants something specific like an egg)
• Rewards page (where you can redeem points for rewards)

Use Case Ideas

• A user affiliated with UH has leftover food, they can post their food on the website. They can attach pictures, locations, and a date of when the food was bought/made for other users to view.
• A restaurant decides to give out its leftovers after they close; they can use the app to let students know to show up within 30 minutes to get food for a reduced price.
• Users can log in with their UH email, browse through the website’s food listing page, and comment on food listings that they are interested in to let the poster know they will claim the food or when they will arrive at the location.

Beyond The Basics

• Implement a point system where you get points for interacting with the app, e.g., dropping off food. Get a prize once you accumulate enough points.
• Add a map to see food drop-off points in real time
• Notifications via email or text when a user’s food preferences are posted
• Countdown for food expiration time