Second year students from the college of Computing and Information Science at Makerere University have invented the first garbage app called the “Yo- Waste App” to ease the disposal of garbage in Uganda.

Martin Tumusiime, 22 years, together with his colleagues John Tugire and Abdul Mayambala are currently developing a new innovation concerning  waste disposal  as an alternative to the pilling of wastes within homes and waiting for KCCA cars to come and collect the garbage who at times take long.

“Scientists and researchers have been looking for better and favorable alternatives to the traditional methods for many years because of a number of disadvantages associated to them such as causing diseases like cholera and diarrhea which at times leads to death, air pollution caused by rotten wastes more especially during the rainy season since KCCA takes long to collect the garbage,” said Tumisiime.

He added that they are developing this Yo-Waste App because it looks to overcome the problems caused by these outdated traditionalized techniques. The app works like an uber for wastes and to use it, one will have to spare like four mbs and install the app on his smart phone, after installing, one will fill in his details as instructed and then instruct them to come and pick up the garbage from one’s home or work place at an affordable price. He added that since we live in an internet error, it will be easily for people to access the app because at least 50% of the citizens of Uganda own smart phones.

According to Dr. Charles Halonda, the Communications Development Officer at the College of Computing, the new technology if studied well will be more effective compared to the traditionally used method because it will get reed of the problems especially health related problems like diseases associated with the poor disposal of rubbish.

Kidega Moses, the college president said that Tumusiime and his colleagues won the competitions of the annual COCIS day which took place on the 27^th, October, 2018 after their innovation being the best and the judges declared them as winners. He added that they are eagerly waiting for positive results after the innovation is fully completed because this predicts effective development for the nation if the young blood can be able to come up with an interesting innovation like this.

He, therefore, called upon government through the ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation Dr. Elioda Tumwesigye who was the chief guest to support this new innovation so that they can be able to save people’s lives as well as the environment.

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