WasteApp 

The measures developed during the research phase on both urban metabolism and waste management practices will be further integrated with the ICT tools developed under the project’s framework. It is established that ICT has a strongly gendered dimension and that men and women tend to use ICT in different ways. This will be reflected in the design of technological and digital solutions to be implemented individually or in conjunction with other measures. Three main tools will be developed:

1. An interactive mobile application (WasteApp), will be developed and tested, based on a gamification model in which the user (tourist) is awarded/re-paid to acknowledge her or his good practice. The reward for this participative waste game will be related to free tickets, free services, sales and discounts in the service providers that support the project (restaurant, bars, etc.). This application will include a localization instrument of the collecting area, based on a mobile app and/or a web access and instruments for the waste management and good practice assessment. A mechanism will be developed in each collecting area (it could be a QR code, Bluetooth access, or the use of ‘I like’ related to the geographical position) that will award/penalize the user according to her or his behaviour. Moreover, WasteApp will be translated from English into all the languages of the project partners in order to become more user-friendly for internal tourists.
2. Interactive maps showing the location of the ‘waste-free’ services, high performing bar/restaurants/hotels and other tourist establishment. The map will be useful for tourist to identify relevant services and tourist providers and for these last ones to promote themselves.
3. Food waste tracking device for food services to give real time feedback of wasted quantities to kitchen staff, but also to collect detailed waste data for evaluation. The food waste tracking device consists of a scale connected to a tablet computer that can send data to an external database via WLAN or through the mobile telephone network. On the tablet computer a specially designed application is used for categorisation and giving feedback of waste generation directly on the screen.

The three tools will be designed, prototyped and developed and used during the pilot implementation and monitoring of the strategies. In particular the WasteApp for tourists will need to be implemented by all piloting cities in order to provide a crowd-monitoring service about tourist behaviour to be used during the implementation phase. The launch of the WasteApp is expected for September 2017.