TrashCoins
One coin per rubbish pick-up
The carelessly discarded can. The empty plastic bag at the roadside. Does it annoy you when you see such garbage in the countryside or even in your neighbourhood? And do you only feel like a lone warrior when you throw the garbage into the next bin? As a disregarded hero? That's the end of it now - thanks to the "TrashCoin" app, pick-up actions are not only seen, but also rewarded!
With the "TrashCoin" App the removal of our everyday garbage is no longer a desperate act of an individual, but the coordinated action of a networked community. And you can mine TrashCoins with real value in the process!
This is how it works: The participants photograph the places with and without garbage. One picture for each side of a new TrashCoin. The coin gets validated by other users. The TrashCoin can than be exchanged, for example an ice cream, a cup of coffee or any voucher. This is great advertisement for stores and other businesses.
And not only business can make offers to exchange TrashCoins. Anyone can to that: Parents against screentime, schools against good grades, zoos against elephant rides etc.
TrashCoin is a currency
The app combines hunting instinct and the fun of social interaction with community service. It turns garbage collection into a rewarding game, based on its own real-value-currency.
The idea for TrashCoins was born at the ImpactHub in Munich. Our team includes Matthias Laabs, who has developed a top 100 Android app, Merlind Theile, who works as an editor in the politics department of the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" and Moritz Theile, who as an independent IT specialist selling his software to banks.
Our plan is to develop a prototype of the app as quickly as possible in the first phase of the project, which will already bring real benefits to selected areas and businesses in Munich. In the second phase we want to use this prototype to learn how both, collectors and stores react to TrashCoins and optimize the game and its rules accordingly. In the third phase, publicity will be generated in Munich and the user base expanded. In the fourth phase, we also want to establish TrashCoins in other cities worldwide. In the fifth phase we want to store mined TrashCoins in a blockchain. By doing so, there will be a not manipulatable record of TrashCoins, all with a validated real world history attached. TrashCoins will become an digital asset that reflects human time and effort to clean up our environment.