Recycling made easy: a Polish recycling assistant powered by Gemma 4

Obvious stuff like cardboard or an old pair of socks is easy. But there are traps – you can't throw an old mug or a broken mirror into the glass bin, even though it seems to be the right choice. And then there's the hair dye bottle with dye still inside. The pizza box with grease on the bottom. The blister pack from your pills.

Real debates are happening on the Polish internet about this stuff. Type "gdzie wyrzucić..." into Google and you'll see how much people struggle. I once watched two friends argue about where a used coffee cup goes — one swore it was paper, the other said mixed waste because of the plastic lining.

Confusing? Hell yeah, it is! 😩

What I Built

That's why I built a web app called . What you see now is v4 – there were a lot of iterations and a lot of live testing along the way. At this point, my entire phone gallery has turned into one big collection of trash photos 🙈 And my neighbours probably think I've gone nuts, because I keep photographing "interesting" items from the backyard bin to see how Gemma will handle them 😅

The app is Polish-only by design – Polish recycling rules apply to people in Poland, and the system prompt is built around Polish categories. I'm planning to add English and Ukrainian translations, though, because there are minorities living in Poland who could really use this, too. Until then, I hope the app is intuitive enough for a non-Polish speaker.

Demo

To test the project, go to repository on GitHub.

At this point, let me be honest with you – I vibe-coded this. I am a Technical Writer, not a Developer, and even though I have experience with git and done some small code updates in the past, this is the first bigger project I've built myself.

It was a multi-agent work. I used Claude Code for the boilerplate code and for turning business logic into reality. I used Gemini's deep search to dig up current recycling rules from Polish government sources and eco-experts. I was the brain behind everything else – the idea, the business logic, the testing, the improvements, leading each next step, holding it all together. And Gemma is the heart of the project 💛

How I Used Gemma 4

The app sends the photo to Gemma 4 with a

The free tier means the demo runs 24/7 without costs. And because Gemma is open-weights, the same app could one day ship with Gemma 4 E2B or E4B running directly on the user's device. That's a path I'd like to explore.

Known limitations

The . A few highlights:

• Multilingual support for English and Ukrainian – many Ukrainians have moved to Poland in recent years, and there are also exchange students and expats living in Poland who would find an English translation handy.


• Interactive clarification – when Gemma isn't sure what's in the photo, let it ask the user a yes/no question instead of guessing.


• Suggesting reuse before recycling for books, clean clothes, working electronics, old furniture, and so on. Recycling is good. Reusing is better.

Closing sentence

If you're in Poland, try out Gdzie to wyrzucić?. If you spot a misclassification or a rule the app gets wrong, please open an issue – I'd love to keep improving it.

Thanks to the dev.to challenge for the deadline, to my colleagues and friends who tested the app, and to Gemma 4 for actually making it all happen 💛