Abstract

Most people by now recognize that donating unwanted or unused items is a great way to declutter one’s home and positively impact the environment. With landfills overflowing and natural resources depleting, finding ways to reduce waste and conserve resources has never been more critical. However, it can be quite challenging to recycle their unused or extra clothes in fast-paced cities in the U.S., such as New York City, which has experienced an increased scale of textile recycling by placing bins in high-traffic areas, but for most consumers, the disposal of textiles requires an inconvenient trip. Most unwanted clothing ends up in a dumpster, even though charities such as Goodwill have served as a repository for unused clothing for decades. Personally, I can relate to this issue since I've had bags of unused clothes sitting in my closet for weeks or even months. It's usually too far or heavy to carry to the donation sites, and most places close early. This motivated me to come up with this thesis: creating an online platform that simplifies and streamlines people's recycling and donating experiences in urban area.

Research

Through the research phase, I have conducted user interviews, surveys, and competitive analysis to understand users’ motivation and opinions on recycling and donating clothes, the attitude and behavior of users towards recycling clothes, and current popular options in the market, respectively.

Technical Details