EcoBin is a smart recycling bin that uses AI image recognition to validate and collect used cooking oil — turning a stubborn pollution problem into clean biodiesel and rewards for the people who recycle it.
Used cooking oil is one of the most under-managed waste streams in Thailand — and one of the easiest to turn around.
Sources: Xu et al., Environ. Sci. Technol., 2022 (PMCID: PMC9228054); U.S. EPA, "Don't Dump Used Oil!" (EPA 530-F-94-008); IMARC Group, Thailand Used Cooking Oil Market Report, 2024.
Our target audience is local food vendors, small restaurants, and households that regularly generate used cooking oil and need a safer, more convenient way to dispose of it.
"Every day I fry sausages, and the leftover oil is such a small amount that no one will buy it. I end up pouring it down the drain at the market."
— Vendor, ตลาด 100 ปี รังสิต (100-Year Rangsit Market)"After working at the market, I always have to carry the used frying oil back home and store it for 1–2 months until it reaches 36 liters before I can sell it. It's very inconvenient for me."
— Vendor, ตลาดนนทบุรี (Nonthaburi Market)Every EcoBin kiosk pairs a camera and AI model with a simple pour-and-go experience, so oil is validated and sorted the moment it's dropped off.
Local restaurants, households, and vendors bring used cooking oil to a nearby EcoBin.
Users log in, validate their account, and pour the oil into the kiosk.
A camera and Raspberry Pi 5 send the image to a YOLOv11-cls model, which classifies it as oil or non-oil in milliseconds.
Valid oil is pumped into the collection bucket and logged to the user's recycling history in real time.
Collected oil is picked up by recycling partners and turned into biodiesel, sustainable aviation fuel, and more.
Alongside every kiosk, the EcoBin app and LINE Official Account let users find bins, track impact, and redeem points — turning a good habit into an ongoing relationship.
See exactly how much oil you've recycled and the impact it's had over time.
Locate the closest EcoBin collection point wherever you are.
Turn recycling into donations or rewards through gamified incentives.
Understand how oil recycling protects water, air, and communities.
We trained a YOLOv11-cls image classification model on 1,162 public and proprietary images, then stress-tested it against two other model families before choosing what to deploy.
Users need real-time feedback the moment they pour — a slow model means longer waits and more misuse. YOLOv11-cls is also lightweight enough to run directly on a Raspberry Pi 5, so EcoBin can scale to households, schools, and communities without expensive GPU infrastructure.
Used cooking oil has bubbles, dark spots, shadows, and uneven transparency that standard data augmentation doesn't replicate. We built custom "black bubble" overlays to mimic real conditions, so the model performs accurately outside the lab too.
of water prevented from contamination per EcoBin, per month
could run annually in Bangkok on biodiesel from just 10% of recycled UCO
an LED bulb could run from just 2 liters of household oil recycled per month
Total Addressable Market
Global used cooking oil market
Serviceable Available Market
Regions with improper UCO disposal (Asia ≈ 50% of global UCO)
Serviceable Obtainable Market
Initial 1% EcoBin penetration of SAM
Find your nearest bin, start tracking your recycling, and earn rewards for turning waste into resource.
eco-bin-user-app.vercel.app