Context
In participating the Ideathon, we need to build a solution to a local problem using Google technologies, in accordance with one or more of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Our group focused on building a solution aimed towards Sustainable Development Goal 14.1 Life Below Water: Reduce Marine Pollution.
Our solution addresses the discrepancy between existing efforts and social media campaigns to reduce fast fashion consumption and the almost exponential growth in revenue that these fast fashion companies continue to see. Considering that this money towards these fast fashion purchases are expected to increase in the future, our solution attempts to address this directly by making it so that for every purchase made, a portion of that will be put towards clean-up efforts of microplastics in our oceans and rivers.
Promblem Statement
Currently the fashion industry is the third most polluting industry in the world, with textiles being the largest source of primary microplastics via microfibres, accounting for 34.8% of global microplastic pollution. These microfibres are released when we wash synthetic clothing, and they end up making their way into wastewater, sewage treatment facilities, and ultimately into our rivers and seas due to their incredibly small size (smaller than 5mm). Considering that 50% of the world’s clothing is made from plastic and approximately 700,000 microfibres are released per wash, 22 million tonnes of microfibres will enter our oceans by 2050.
Due to the tiny size of microplastics, they can be ingested by marine animals which can have catastrophic effects on the species and the entire marine ecosystem. Not only would the ingestion of these microfibres severely injure marine animals, but the subsequent impact going up the food chain would also harm humans as well, with side effects of oxidative stress, DNA damage, and inflammation already being predicted to occur long-term.
Background Topic Research
Existing solutions that tackle this challenge such as Greenspark, which is a platform that easily integrates store, marketing suite, or reviews platform and creates automated impact for every customer, subscriber, or review. It allows people to connect in seconds, sit back and watch their impact grow. For example, it automatically plants trees for every sale the company makes, rescues ocean-bound plastic for every subscriber, and offsets the carbon footprint of the company’s product.
Another existing solution is an app called The Dive Against Debris which aims to help reduce underwater debris in order to help marine life. It allows divers to record and communicate the debris collected from the sea and establish a global dataset evaluating trends and advocating for change.
Our solution prototype addresses our chosen UN Goal and problem by both raising awareness amongst consumers for how ethical and sustainable the brands they are shopping from are via Chrome extension. It also tracks purchase history and spending to determine the amount of plastic that is being reduced from spending, money that is potentially saved, and how much marine life has been saved through the corresponding app.
Solution
Branding and Style Guide
Final Product
Mobile Interfaces
Chrome Extension Demo Video