ERRA, the Environmental Recycling Research Application

While Missoula, MT, heralds itself as being on the forefront of environmental sustainability, our city has a distressingly low recycling rate relative to the rest of Montana. As both Missoulians and global citizens, it is critical that we use all the tools at our disposal to better understand and implement sustainable practices, and our application positions itself at the intersection of social media and sustainability to address this very need. Through analysis of successful application models and collaboration with a local app-development company, we have created an application that encourages recycling habits while gathering data on current recycling trends among the community of users. ERRA provides social incentivizes for users to recycle more by bringing the amount they recycle into the public sphere and providing virtual rewards. Additionally, ERRA plays an educational role, providing users with detailed information about the materials they and their neighbors have recycled in terms of quantity and makeup, a function which will ultimately aid research efforts by providing localized data on recycling trends over time. While various methods of encouraging recycling currently exist, ours is the first to combine social media with positive peer pressure to foster friendly competition. As a publishable application, ERRA can be easily scaled up to expand its reach. As a city where widespread support for sustainability exists alongside a tradition of successful tech start-ups, Missoula is the perfect community for an innovative platform like ERRA to take root