Abstract

Circular Economy research is stalled by a simple problem: we don't have open data on what products are actually made of. Manufacturers keep Bill of Materials (BOM) proprietary, and existing databases are expensive silos.

This talk introduces RELab, an open-source (AGPLv3) infrastructure designed to reverse-engineer this data through community crowdsourcing. We will dive into the technical architecture—a FastAPI/SQLModel backend and Expo/React Native mobile app—and discuss the challenges of implementing FAIR data principles in a "wild" contribution environment.

Description

To model material flows effectively, researchers need granular data on product weights, materials, and disassembly steps. Currently, this data is either locked in PDFs or proprietary databases.

RELab (Reverse Engineering Lab) is an attempt to build a protoype of a "Wikipedia for Products." It allows researchers and citizens to disassemble products, digitize them, and contribute to an open data commons.

In this lightning talk, I will cover:

• The Architecture: How we built a scalable API using FastAPI, Pydantic, and PostgreSQL to handle complex, nested product data structures.

• The Client: A cross-platform mobile app (built with Expo) that enables "in-the-field" data collection at recycling centers and repair cafes.

• The Hardware: A quick look at our Raspberry Pi integration for standardized, reproducible product photography.

• The Challenge: How to build a system that is technically interoperable with rigid industrial ecology tools (like openLCA or Brightway) while remaining accessible and engaging for non-technical citizen scientists.

We are looking for feedback on our strategy to gamify data collection and engage a broader community of contributors outside of academia.

Other details

• Submission License: AGPLv3 (GNU Affero General Public License v3.0)
• Speaker
• Name: Simon van Lierde
• Contact: s.n.van.lierde@cml.leidenuniv.nl
• Biography: Simon van Lierde is a PhD candidate and research software engineer at Leiden University (CML). He maintains RELab, an AGPLv3 platform for crowdsourcing product composition data. His work focuses on building open infrastructure for the Circular Economy using modern stacks (FastAPI, React Native) and bridging the gap between industrial ecology and the open-source community.

Links to the project:

• https://github.com/CMLPlatform/relab
• https://cml-relab.org/products