Thousands Of Tonnes A Day, Almost None Of It Tracked
Sri Lanka's solid waste system relies on fixed municipal collection rounds that residents can't track, unreliable schedules that vary by ward, and near-zero source segregation. The 2017 Meethotamulla dump collapse made waste management a national issue — yet households still have no digital way to know when the truck is coming, what to separate, or how to report a missed pickup.
Meanwhile, informal collectors — bottle, paper, and metal buyers on bicycles and tuk-tuks — run an invisible but massive recycling economy with no digital layer connecting them to supply.
What We Learned From The Ground
Interviews with residents, council supervisors, and informal collectors surfaced the insights that shaped the product:
Unpredictability is the #1 pain. Residents wait with bags at the gate or miss the truck entirely; bags left out get torn open by dogs and crows. Live truck tracking is the single feature people would download for.
Segregation rules are confusing, and complaints go nowhere. Color-coded bin days differ by council and change without notice; reporting a missed collection means calling the council office during working hours.
Councils run on paper. Supervisors have no live view of truck location or completion status — and fuel is a major cost line, making optimized routing an easy, sellable win.
Recyclables have cash value people don't capture. Newspapers, glass, and metal are sold to roaming collectors — but only if you happen to be home when one passes. No app combines tracking + segregation guidance + a recyclables marketplace in one trilingual product.
Three Users, One Loop
Nadeesha, 34 — Resident, Nugegoda. "I never know if the truck comes at 7 or 10. Some weeks it just doesn't." Wants reliable pickup alerts, clear segregation rules, and a way to sell old newspapers and bottles without waiting for the bottle man.
Mr. Perera, 51 — Council Supervisor. "I have 12 trucks and a phone. That's my entire tracking system." Needs a dashboard showing truck GPS, completed streets, citizen complaints, and daily tonnage — without training an IT team.
Suresh, 42 — Recyclables Buyer. "I ride 30 km a day hoping someone has bottles. Half the time, nothing." Wants pickup requests routed to him so every kilometre pays — like a ride-hail app, but for recyclables.
One Platform, Two Modes
Bingo ships as a dual-mode app. Collector Mode opens on today's overview — assigned, collected, and pending counts — a live collection map, and today's route with per-stop status. Disposer Mode tracks the active collection truck in real time with ETA, trip details, and a daily summary.
The MVP centers on the hero loop: live truck tracking with street-level ETA, ward-specific schedules with push/SMS/voice alerts, one-tap missed-collection reporting with photo and auto-location, an illustrated trilingual segregation guide, and a web dashboard for council supervisors.
V2 adds the recyclables marketplace — post weight and photos, nearby verified collectors accept, in-app rate card per kg — plus bulk pickup booking, rewards points redeemable as mobile reload, and a collector wallet. V3 layers on an AI waste identifier, ML route optimization, smart-bin IoT, and business/ESG accounts.
Key Screens
A walkthrough of the core flows. Swipe through the highlights below.
Free For Citizens, Paid By Those Who Save Money
The citizen app stays free forever — adoption is the moat. Revenue comes from B2G SaaS (per-truck / per-ward licences for tracking and route optimization), marketplace commission (5–10% on recyclable transactions and paid bulk pickups), premium on-demand pickups, corporate ESG programs, and anonymized data products. Tight council budgets mean the pilot anchors on donor/CSR funding, with route-optimization fuel savings selling the subscription as self-paying.
The 18-month roadmap runs pilot to province: an MOU with one Colombo-district council and a 500-household beta by month 4, full-council public launch by month 7 targeting 20% adoption, the marketplace and 100+ verified collectors by month 12, and the intelligence layer plus a Western Province agreement by month 18.
The Complete Picture
Click the image to open it full size — scroll to explore the key screens together.