Fighting Frictionless Discard With Behavior-First Tools

I’m building a side project called Convivy – a neighborhood exchange app for giving and getting secondhand items, hyperlocally.

The main challenge of this endeavor – which probably applies to any secondhand-centric tool or business – is that most people would rather toss something than figure out where to give it. And, equally, that people would rather buy something in a span of seconds on Amazon, than use, for example, a Buy Nothing group.

Frictionless discard and fast, cheap retail have made it so easy for us to buy stuff and throw it out. Convenience is a major expectation of anything we do. So I’ve been designing this tool around questions like:

How do we nudge behavior without guilt?
How do we make giving something away feel like a win?
How do we lower the activation energy for participation?

And, perhaps most importantly: How do we make giving and receiving locally appealing to not just environmental geeks, but to regular folk? 

I’m aiming to simplify giving and receiving with AI tools, low-effort coordination, and no-frills, minimalist UI (to avoid visual clutter and choice paralysis). 

If you’ve worked on behavior change within climate, I’d love to learn from your approach.