PDXEcoSorter

Portland like most cities waste tons of food in restaurants and businesses alike. With PDXEcoSorter we can create a sustainable management system for food and get these businesses benefits.

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Inspiration

Since I was a kid I always had a struggle getting food and worried always about wasting food. My mother would "beat us" not really if we wasted food because it's expensive. This has always been in the back of my mind. As I grew older I realized how much food gets prepped and then wasted especially in restaurants. This sparked an idea for me, "why not give the food to the homeless or those in need?". Now, for most food that is plate-scrap we cannot as that is a safety hazard, but those scraps can now be composted securely here in Portland as of 2026.

What it does

Calculates food waste in a business and generates a report to save the business money. The staff, kitchen and front of house, have distinct roles in this process. The back of house will put in the information for the food prep to be analyzed through the day until the end of day. The front of house, the waiters and such, will weigh out the plate-scraps before they put them in a separate bin. These too roles help the manger at the end of day view where the waste is coming from and where it can go: either donating to for banks alike or composting to avoid a city penalty.

How I built it

I used the Expo framework for the front end and back end communication and face. I also used react-native for interactions with the app and scheduling. The backend of the Expo framework allowed communication with the database for gets and pushes, which turned allowed foreparts to be made at the end of the day. Typescript helped with automating some of these tasks and generating a continuous report every time something occurred.

Challenges I ran into

Dealing with databases and their connections (i.e, I had to switch databases halfway through the second hour ). And gitlab signature issues where my computer and gitlab were miscommunication.This forced me to delete some old tags and rebase new ones.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Getting the look the way I wanted. Had used AI to help me with styling, but even then it struggled get it exactly the way I wanted it to look . I enjoyed separation of concerns for the FOH (front-of-house) and BOH (back-of-house) employees, as wells the anger having their own tabs. Solving a relevant and actual problem in Portland was also a win.

What I learned

A lot more about typescript and how it works similar to python or java but in its own unique way. And databases are annoying but they're useful and easy once the setup is done and completed

What's next for PDXEcoSorter

Making an actual manifesto PDF for sharing via fax, email, or any other format of distribution.

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