"As a high school student, motivated by the desire to keep useful items out of landfills, William Chui built an online store where users could shop for free, pre-used clothes and household wares. When he arrived at UC Berkeley as a freshman last fall, he learned about the piles of waste generated when students moved out of their dorms which the city then has to contend with."
"To combat the overwhelm students and others can feel when deciding what to do with unwanted clutter, Chui and his team designed an AI agent that can evaluate an item's quality and condition and make recommendations. Called ReMove, the app might suggest bringing reusable furniture to Urban Ore, for example. Textbooks could be donated to a community organization or student club, and unusable bulk waste picked up by the city or a contractor."
"Last week, Chui had an opportunity to tackle that problem as part of the first-ever Berkeley Civic Innovation Challenge, a weeklong sprint bringing together teams of UC Berkeley students to solve pressing issues facing Berkeley city government. Challenges in five areas digital access, disaster resilience, housing access, small business procurement and zero waste strategies were proposed by city officials. Finalists raced to research solutions, draft pitches, and sell them to a panel of judges"
A UC Berkeley student observed large volumes of usable items thrown out during dorm move-outs and developed a reuse-focused approach. The Berkeley Civic Innovation Challenge matched students with city-defined problems across five areas, including zero waste strategies. One team created ReMove, an AI agent that assesses item condition and recommends destinations such as Urban Ore, community groups, student clubs, or city pickup for bulk waste. The approach aims to increase reuse and donations, streamline disposal, and lower municipal transportation and landfill expenses by directing items to appropriate recovery or disposal pathways.
Read at www.berkeleyside.org
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