Dung beetle Dao, a decentralized waste management platform

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

[GENERAL] Co-proposers and additional applicants

Patrick Maffouo

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

Prototype a 3-tier (producers, collectors, recyclers) decentralized waste Mgmt system with token incentives for stakeholders, along with governance and reputation components for quality control

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

No dependencies.

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

We plan to use the Apache-2.0 LICENSE

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

Context

Household waste management

In many African countries, like Cameroon, household waste management poses a significant challenge and there are minimal outlets for everyday people to dispose of waste appropriately. Households typically collect mixed organic and non-organic waste in small containers and dispose of it in random community-chosen locations. Trash piles near living areas fill up quickly, leading to overflow and sanitary issues. 

The primary waste management company, Hysacam, is overwhelmed and lacks sufficient resources and logistics to handle the waste generated. When piles become too large, the community often resorts to burning them, causing air pollution and unsafe conditions. However, there is an opportunity here that is not being explored. Local farmers, particularly those transitioning to regenerative practices, could benefit enormously from organic waste, but there is no real culture around composting, and if so it is done on a household-by-household basis. Another opportunity for compost culture kicking off is the massive availability of cow manure, in the Adamaoua and North regions of Cameroon, where cow farming is prevalent. How the manure is currently handled is causing excessive buildup in confined areas especially during rainy seasons, but this could be exploited to everyone’s benefit.

Hysacam the only trash management company 

Hysacam, the main private waste collection company, has an unreliable schedule and inadequate collection frequency. Their methods of handling trash, such as producing low-quality compost and burning waste, worsen the situation. Their random and infrequent appearances in neighborhoods make it challenging for residents to dispose of their trash effectively. They claim the government, who is their main contractor is always behind its bills and this causes them to cut down their schedules.

Video depicting Hysacam handling waste

Our General Solution

Our overall solution consists of designing and implementing The Dung Beetle Dao, a decentralized waste management platform. This being a greenfield project, we plan on taking an iterative approach comprising 3 core stages: Concept, MVP and Final Product. Through this proposal, we are suggesting to refine our concept by running interviews on the ground, and collecting data to curate our idea, and finally producing a white paper along with a prototype. 

During this concept stage, we aim to consolidate our ideas and develop a prototype showcasing all possible components and use cases that will be within our dApp. We plan to align our iteration strategy with Project Catalyst's framework by progressing through the Concept, MVP, and Product stages, enabling future iterations in the Cardano ecosystem. 

Our strategy for the concept stage involves three main phases:

I - Research and idea consolidation:

1- Acquire all tools and logistics.

Our main activity here will be acquiring the following necessary tools:

• Transport means
• Trash cans and other trash handling tools
• Weighing tools

2- Identify all stakeholders with their specific roles in the system.

As of now, we have identify three groups of users or tiers:

Trash producers (Beetle Dia Ntente)

Trash producers will be primarily either: 

• Households 
• Cow farmers 

We will select and equip households and farms with bins / bags in addition to training for waste sorting, schedule collections, and use a token system to incentivize proper sorting with fees adjusted based on compliance.

Trash collectors (Beetle Dia Zole) 

Trash collectors will be primarily either: 

• Trash drivers / Trash loaders
• Cow manure collectors. 

As with other players, trash collectors will have profiles that capture all their transactions within the system. We intend to select three drivers for our research and documentation and provide them with a tricycle, trash weighing, and other essential tools (bags, pitch-fork or shovel, etc.).

Collectors will be assigned a specific zone, and they will be responsible for not only collecting waste from households, and cattle farmers, but also delivering it to pre-assigned farms/ farmers. They will play a crucial role in verifying and validating that the organic waste collected is suitable for compost (free of plastics and harmful chemicals). 

Trash recyclers farmers / compost producers (Beetle Dia Tatu)

Trash recyclers will be primarily either: 

• Regenerative farmers
• Compost makers

We plan on selecting 1 to 3 pilot farms / compost makers. They will be delivered organic waste at a small fee related to gas and transport required to get it to their farm. Portion of this fee will go towards amortizing the cost of the tricycle and other materials.

All the stakeholders will play a part in the validation process which will include verifying the quality of the compost (purely organic) and confirming the weight. GPS devices on the rider hand will be mounted on the tricycle and will provide useful and reliable information that will be used to create the Beetle token

3- Prepare questionnaires for different target audiences 

We plan on elaborating a questionnaire geared toward describing the current state of the waste management domain in Cameroon which will help us gather and structure data to curate our concept.

4- Preselect sample stakeholders and run interviews

For each role mentioned above, we will preselect sample candidates not only to extensively interview them, but also to work with them in implementing both our white paper and prototypes. These will be domain experts with deep insights. We have a few potential partners farms on the ground already promoting regenerative practices.

5- Run experiments

Now will be the time to actually run experiments testing the strategy laid out from our research and planning. This will consist of working with our sample producers , collectors and recyclers in collecting waste, delivering it to farms and composting / using it.

II - Documentation elaboration:

1- Design the system strategically, focusing on key components and their integration.

At this step the main goal will be not only identifying the functional components that constitute the whole system with clearly defined boundaries and then working on their integration and communication aspects. We intend to use graphical maps to illustrate all the components showcasing their interactions. Below is an example:

2- Design the system tactically, focusing on individual components.

This step will consist of producing more detailed information and documentation at individual components levels, what objects are part of them and how they relate to each other. 

Develop specification documents and white papers.

For this second phase, we intend to produce a requirements and specification documents as well as the full architecture of the system. Each of this document will help structure the info we had collected in the previous steps and provide a clear description of our project. 

III- Prototype implementation:

1- Develop a web prototype using Elm.

2- Develop mobile prototype using Android.

3- Elaborate considerations for next steps: (MVP) development.

Token-economics considerations

Beetle Token Co-Creation model

Token emission is tied to the weight of validated waste transformed at designated farms through specific composting processes. Our tokenomics model focuses on co-creation, diverging from traditional token production methods to avoid asymmetry in the production process. Influenced by systems like Money Libre, we aim to make it fair for future token users.

Beetle Token Distribution

Token distribution will be based off of three core factors: 

• Your role (Producer, Collector, Recycler, Developer, etc.) 
• The weight of trash and time taken to process it 
• Your reputation in the system (based on previous activity)

Governance considerations

This will be elaborated on in the future MVP phase.

Technical Considerations

The problem space we face here is clearly waste management. We have strategically split our domain into the following areas that will eventually become our solution space. 

• IAM (Identities and Access Management)
• Pickup planning and schedule management (Assigning collector to zone, assigning households to zone, assigning cow farmer to zones, assigning farmers / compost maker to collectors and deliverers)
• Fleet Tracking (Monitoring deliverers moves, useful for capturing the distance factor)
• Mapping (Defining pick up areas, Supporting the Fleet tracking System)
• Reputation (Support for incentives and disincentives)
• Governance (Decision making procedures and processes)
• Credits management (Proportional to waste produced, aggregate or recycled)
• Token Minting / Distribution(For co producing tokens,Rewarding effort and time of all stakeholders))
• Compost Collection management (Tracking stakeholders contributions)
• Resource Management (Tracking transportation means, availability, deprecation, etc)
• Notification (Subscription to interested event and notification via selected channels)
• Calendar (Event handling and planning)

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

While Cardano has expressed interest in the African market, many projects on the platform have not yet demonstrated a tangible impact on local communities in Africa. We believe our project will bring about a real-world difference, sparking interest in Cardano among local developers and entrepreneurs. With its concrete solution to a specific problem, our project has the potential to be well-received.

How will you measure this impact? 

Impact will be measured in two phases. First, we will be looking for the level of interest from potential consumers (people wanting the organic waste). Then we will look at the level of interest from those looking for a better way to get rid of their waste. We anticipate a lot of households, farmers, and collectors wanting to be part of this first experiment, and will validate this through on-the-ground surveys. 

How will you share the outputs and opportunities that result from your project?

As stated above, this is an open source project all the documentation produced will be made available on Gitlab, Youtube, or other social media outlets.

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

We are connected to the Wada network through a connection at the Cameroon Hub, DIT who introduced us to this platform.

We will consider partnering with DIT if we receive funding, as they have the capabilities to deliver the technical portion of this project.

For the implementation of this project we will also be looking to partner with CosTel Farm a local farm in Bertoua, Cameroon who are pioneering a new paradigm promoting organic and syn-tropic practices in an area overrun by mono-culture and Monsanto. They are already experimenting what we described to some degree.

As a former student of FASA in Dschang, Cameroon, a renowned agricultural school in Central Africa, I graduated and worked for the government before relocating to the US, where I currently work as a landscaper. My visit to CosTel Farm last December showcased a similar concept in action, demonstrating their remarkable groundwork. With my background and experience in farming, there is a strong indication that we are well-positioned to successfully deliver on this project.

[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

2 months

A: Milestone outputs

Acquire appropriate materials to implement phase 1:

• Trash cans 
• Tricycle  
• Waste collection tools (wheelbarrow, pitchfork, etc.) 
• GPS devices
• Weighing gadgets

Identify all stakeholders and their specific roles in the system.

• List potential households areas, collector / drivers and farmers
• Prepare questionnaires for specific targets
• Select final stakeholders sample

B: Acceptance criteria

Proof of acquisition of materials in the form of pictures and receipts, documentation of surveys

C: Evidence of milestone completion

• Both pictures and receipts for tools purchased
• List of selected stakeholders
• Video interview of stakeholders (When consented)

3 months

A: Milestone outputs

• Conduct extensive interviews with targeted stakeholders
• Produce an analysis report (Structure/ Sections)
• Produce a specification document (Structure/ Sections)

B: Acceptance criteria

Minimum requirement for number of people interviewed, at least 5 per role. Video not required (people are not always comfortable being filmed so this will not be a requirement that they appear on video, we will have other options to record responses such as transcription and audio only recording).

C: Evidence of milestone completion

• Video recording of some of the interviews 
• Publish analysis report
• Published specifications document

3 months

A: Milestone outputs

• Fully elaborated Specification Document
• Fully elaborated White paper Document
• Fully elaborated Architecture document

B: Acceptance criteria

• Documents are complete

C: Evidence of milestone completion

• Published curated Specification Document 
• Published White paper Document 
• Published curated Architecture document

4 months

A: Milestone outputs

• Fully develop web prototype
• Fully develop mobile prototype
• Run Simulations / Tests

B: Acceptance criteria

• One web prototype
• One mobile prototype
• Test and simulations results reports

C: Evidence of milestone completion

• Demo + link to web prototype
• Demo + link to mobile prototype
• Published test results on Git-Lab
• Written and Video report

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Lead roles

• Habib Mefire, Project manager is originally from Cameroon working for the past 3 years in Ohio managing his own landscaping company. He grew up farming and for university, attended FASA one of the top agricultural schools in Cameroon where he obtained his degree. 

• Philip Hess, Consultant, has a strong background in bio-dynamics farming. He worked for several years at Apricot Lane Farms, featured in The Biggest little farm at the compost department where he would collect cow manure and used it to make compost piles. He also worked with various other composting techniques including vermicompost.

Technical roles

• Ntet Igor: Plutus, Haskell Elm Developer. Ntet has worked with DIT a Blockchain focus IT company operating in Cameroon, training in Plutus and Haskell.

• Neudjieu Raoul: Plutus, Haskell Elm Developer. Ntet has worked with DIT a Blockchain focus IT company operating in Cameroon, training in Plutus and Haskell.

Supervision and coordination roles

• Patrick Maffouo, Farm supervisor @ CosTel Farm

Additional participants to be motivated as temporary support roles such as runners to support with the interviews, marketing, and videos, labor roles such as trash collectors.

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

Materials acquisition

• 30 - Trash cans ( ₳60 each * 30) = ₳ 1800
• 01 - Tricycle ( ₳9000) = ₳ 9000
• 02 - GPS device ( ₳300 each * 02) = ₳ 600
• 03 - Weighing tools ( ₳100 each * 03) = ₳ 300
• Other kits (Clothes, pitchforks ...etc) ₳1500

Logistic & Transport

• 09 Interview sessions( ₳300 each * 9 months) = ₳ 2700
• 03 Waste handling Workshops ( ₳900 each * 03) = ₳ 2700
• Space rental ( ₳300 * 3) = ₳ 900

Compost Experts / Waste handlers

• 01 Compost expert ( ₳1000 * 1 month) = ₳ 1000
• 01 Trash sorting expert ( ₳200 * 6 months) = ₳ 1200
• 01 Cow manure collector ( ₳ 600 * 6 months) = ₳ 3600
• 01 Driver ( ₳300 * 6 months) = ₳ 1800

Software Devs. Resources

• 01 Software Architects ( ₳3000 each * 06 months) = ₳ 18000
• 01 Plutus / Haskell Back-end developer ( ₳1500 * 9 months) = ₳ 13500
• 01 Elm Front developer developer ( ₳750 * 9 months) = ₳ 6750
• 01 Software analyst ( ₳750 * 9 months) = ₳ 6750
• 01 Interview Lead and reporter ( ₳500 * 9 months) = ₳ 4500

Acquisition of hardware and software infrastructure

• Web hosting (₳ 500)
• CD/CI integration (₳ 500)

Coordination / Management / Administration  

• 01 Project manager ( ₳1000 each * 01 * 9 months) = ₳ 9000

Contingency: ₳ 6400

Total Expenses: ₳ 84 000

In the case of Ada price fluctuations, we reserve the right to change the scope of this project as related to the number of households and waste collectors who can participate and receive materials.

[VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

In Bertoua it is not uncommon to hire a trash collector to help bring your household waste to the nearest dumping site. This service often costs around 2,000 XAF/month per household and doesn’t do too much to improve the trash crisis in Cameroon - although this helps remove the trash from your property the trash is still being dumped in places where it is not propoerly taken care of and ends up polluting the atmosphere. The opportunity we are offering here is to provide a better service for this middle man. We are not trying to replace Hysacam, but to give them less waste to deal with (only the non-organic waste). It is a win-win for everyday people and Hysacam. It will provide REAL VALUE to the people of Cameroon without posing a threat to the establishment.