Educational Recycling WebAR App For Culver City

Overview

About SGA Marketing

SGA Marketing is a nationally recognized public awareness firm and recipient of the prestigious Silver Anvil award. The organization’s work spans environmental conservation, housing, and public health. For this project, SGA worked with Culver City, California, to educate the public about proper recycling behavior in parks and public spaces.

Technologies

Unity

Services

Their Challenge

Culver City wanted to reduce recycling contamination and improve awareness around how to dispose of common drinking containers like plastic bottles, cups, glass, and styrofoam. SGA Marketing came up with the idea of using augmented reality to create an educational experience, but needed a team with strong technical expertise to get it done. The project required a reliable, engaging, and low-barrier solution within a public grant-funded budget.

Our Solution

We collaborated with SGA Marketing to design and develop a web-based AR experience that educates users on proper recycling habits through an interactive game. Our team didn’t just build the app, we guided the creative and technical process. From helping define the game mechanics to recommending the right AR platform, we worked closely with the client to address their core needs. The result is an engaging, easy-to-use application triggered by a QR code – no download required.

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Our Approach

What Saritasa Did

Quality Assurance Testing

The original concept involved placing QR codes on public trash cans to trigger an AR experience using marker tracking. In practice, the reliance on a physical marker severely impacted the usability of the experience. For example, it reset whenever users moved their phones away from the trashcan. When internal QA revealed these issues, we rebuilt it with a better tracking method (at no extra cost to the client) because it didn’t meet our quality standards.

AR Surface Tracking

When we switched from marker tracking to surface tracking, it ended up being a smoother and more flexible experience. This new approach simplified deployment and increased the experience’s reach. Now, users can launch the game anywhere with a flat surface without a trashcan as a trigger or maintaining a specific camera angle.

WebAR Application

As the City was working with grant funding, we operated on a limited budget. Rather than building a fully custom AR app, we researched different WebAR platforms to give us a headstart. We ended up selecting BlippAR, as it offered the best combination of functionality and affordable ongoing licensing. Users simply scan a QR code to launch the game directly in their mobile browser, no app download required.

3D Modeling & Design

We designed Stan the Sustainability Monster, a friendly trash monster who teaches users how to sort waste properly. Stan was customized from a prebuilt 3D model with updated features, animations, and a safety vest. The game includes eight items for users to sort into trash or recycling. If they get it right, Stan celebrates; if they’re wrong, he provides a helpful explanation. This mix of play and education helps reinforce better recycling behavior.

Cross-Platform Development

Because the experience needed to run on a wide range of mobile devices, regardless of OS, brand, or age, we optimized the 3D assets and animations to ensure fast loading, minimal lag, and crash resistance. Performance testing and asset compression were key to making sure the experience worked just as well on budget Android phones as it did on the latest iPhones.