PS-08Climate, Water & Circularity
PlasticWatch
AI-GIS Detection and Prioritisation of Plastic Waste Hotspots
SDG 11SDG 12SDG 14
The challenge
Plastic waste accumulates repeatedly near drains, riverbanks, markets, roadsides and vacant plots, yet clean-up activity is often reactive and hotspot data is not systematically maintained. Develop an AI-GIS system that uses geotagged images, citizen reports or sample aerial/street imagery to detect probable plastic-waste accumulation, cluster repeated reports and prioritise locations for verification or cleanup. The system should include confidence scores and should not treat unverified citizen images as conclusive evidence of responsibility.
What a working submission needs
Build a prototype that processes sample images/reports, classifies likely plastic-waste presence, maps detections, merges duplicate reports and ranks hotspots by severity, recurrence and proximity to sensitive locations such as drains or water bodies.
Stretch goals
before/after verification, route planning for cleanup teams, trend prediction or ward-level dashboards.
Optional. A working core counts for more than feature count.Suggested stack
Web/mobile application, AI/ML models, a mapping or dashboard interface, and open APIs as appropriate to the problem.
Scope and responsibility
Healthcare, safety and public-sector challenges are decision-support tools, not autonomous clinical, legal, emergency-command or enforcement systems. Name your prototype’s limitations in the demo. Judging weighs a working core, justified use of AI, technical quality, real-world impact and responsible design above feature count.
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