Service Terms

These Service Terms (the "Terms") are a binding agreement between you and eSmart Bin ("eSmart Bin", "we", "us" or "our" — the company identified in Section 21). They govern your use of the eSmart Bin application (the "App") and our related account, support and web services (together, the "Service"). Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information and should be read together with these Terms.

By selecting "I agree", creating an account, or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. ELIGIBILITY

1.1 You must be at least 18 years old — or older where the age of majority or of contractual capacity where you live is higher — and you represent and warrant that you are. Giving a false age or circumventing an age control is a material breach, and we will close any account we discover belongs to a person under 18.

1.2 The Service is provided for your personal, lawful, non-commercial use only. A business, municipality, school, waste operator or other organisation must obtain our written permission before using or relying on the Service operationally.

1.3 You may use the Service only in a territory where we have enabled it and where your use is lawful. We may block or withdraw the Service in any territory.

2. YOUR ACCOUNT

2.1 You may create an account with Continue with Apple (not available in the Android app), Continue with Google, or email sign-in; your chosen provider's own terms apply to its service.

2.2 You must provide accurate information, keep your device and sign-in method secure, not share, sell or transfer your account, not create an account for anyone else or hold more than one account to obtain extra credits or allowances, and notify privacy@esmartbin.com promptly of suspected unauthorised use. You are responsible for activity on your account to the extent permitted by law, except activity caused by our breach of a duty we owe you.

2.3 You can delete your account at any time in the App (Profile → Delete Account) or at esmartbin.com/delete-account. The Privacy Policy explains what deletion covers. Deleting your account does not cancel any subscription held with an app marketplace.

3. WHAT THE SERVICE IS — AND IS NOT

3.1 The Service uses automated image- and text-classification technology to suggest a waste category or disposal stream, and may provide educational information, statistics, estimates, streaks, credits, promotional allowances, recycling-location searches, private feedback tools and third-party advertising. It is provided free of charge.

3.2 eSmart Bin is not a waste hauler, recycler, waste-management contractor, municipal or environmental authority, laboratory, certification body, environmental consultant, engineer, medical adviser, poison-control centre or emergency service. We do not collect, transport, accept, treat or dispose of waste, and we are not a party to any arrangement between you and any waste authority, hauler, retailer or facility.

3.3 We do not guarantee that the Service or any feature will be available, uninterrupted or continued, and we may add, change, suspend, limit or discontinue any feature. Beta or experimental features may be changed or withdrawn without notice.

4. AUTOMATED RESULTS

4.1 Classification results are produced automatically. They are informational suggestions — not determinations, instructions, certifications or advice — and they may be wrong. A confidence indication is not a guarantee of correctness.

4.2 Local rules always control. Waste requirements differ by country, municipality, building, hauler and facility. Check the item label and the instructions of your local waste authority or facility before disposing of anything; those instructions override any suggestion the Service displays. You must not rely on a result as a sole source of truth or as a substitute for professional advice.

4.3 The Service does not make, and must not be used to make, any decision with legal or similarly significant effect for any person. It does not perform facial recognition, biometric identification or biometric templates.

4.4 Any figure showing items sorted, environmental impact or similar progress is a non-verified motivational estimate, not an audited environmental claim, carbon credit, certification or guarantee of any disposal outcome.

5. SAFETY — READ THIS SECTION

5.1 Do not rely on the Service for batteries (including damaged, swollen or lithium batteries), electrical and electronic equipment, chemicals, solvents, paints, fuel, oil, gas cylinders, aerosols or other pressurised containers, medicines, sharps and needles, clinical or biohazardous material, asbestos, radioactive material, explosives, fireworks, ammunition, weapons, confidential documents, or anything requiring regulated, licensed or professional handling. For any such item, contact your local authority, a licensed handler or the emergency services.

5.2 Never open, taste, inhale, puncture, crush, heat, burn, dismantle or otherwise interfere with an unknown or dangerous item to obtain a better classification, and do not put yourself or anyone else at risk to take a photograph. Keep dangerous items away from children and animals and follow all safety instructions on the item.

6. PERMISSIONS AND INPUTS

6.1 Camera classification requires camera permission; if you refuse or revoke it, description-based classification remains available. To classify an item, the App sends your photograph or description to our classification service and our third-party AI service providers, as described in the Privacy Policy; classification needs an internet connection. Feedback attachments use your operating system's photo picker and we receive only the photos you select. Advertising permissions and choices are described in the Privacy Policy and never disable classification.

6.2 Do not photograph people or private material. Do not submit a person's image, an identity document, private papers or another person's personal data without permission, and remove or obscure faces, addresses, number plates and other identifiers before scanning or submitting anything.

7. YOUR SUBMISSIONS

7.1 You retain your rights in what you submit, and you confirm you own it or have every permission needed to provide it. A correction is sent with the photograph from the classification you are correcting, any further photographs you add (up to two), your text, the classification context and your account details; if you do not want the photograph sent, do not send the correction.

7.2 When you deliberately send feedback, a correction or a similar submission, you grant eSmart Bin a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable licence to host, store, copy, secure, review, annotate, adapt and use it to investigate and answer your report; evaluate and correct classifications; protect the Service, its users and third parties; and develop, test and improve the Service and its classification technology. The licence does not override a privacy choice you make or any consent the applicable law requires, and you can ask us to stop using and to delete your submissions at any time at privacy@esmartbin.com. The licence continues only for material that has been irreversibly de-identified or incorporated into an improvement that cannot identify you or reproduce your protected content.

7.3 You represent and warrant that your submission contains no other person's personal data, no confidential information and nothing infringing, unlawful or harmful. Do not submit unlawful, exploitative, threatening, hateful, harassing or sexual material; material depicting or involving a minor; malware; or content unrelated to the feature. Submissions are private, are not published to other users, and may be rejected, restricted, preserved or removed by us where reasonably necessary.

7.4 If you send us an idea or suggestion about the Service, we may use it without restriction, obligation or payment.

8. ACCEPTABLE USE

You must not, and must not help or permit another person to:

• use the Service unlawfully, or to harm a person, property, an animal or the environment;
• give a false age, impersonate another person, or create or use an account for someone else;
• evade or manipulate an account, age, scan, credit, promotional allowance, advertising, security or territorial control;
• generate artificial advertisement impressions or clicks, or interfere with advertising measurement;
• scrape, crawl, harvest, automate, overload, disrupt, probe or gain unauthorised access to the Service or any account;
• introduce malicious code or exploit a vulnerability;
• remove, obscure or alter a legal, copyright, attribution, advertising or security notice; or
• conceal or misrepresent any of the above.

Report good-faith security concerns to support@esmartbin.com; do not access another user's data, degrade production, or disclose a vulnerability publicly before we have had a reasonable opportunity to address it.

9. REVERSE ENGINEERING — PROTECTION OF THE SERVICE

9.1 Except to the extent that a mandatory law or an applicable third-party licence expressly permits it, you must not, directly or indirectly, and must not help or permit anyone else to:

• reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, decode, translate or otherwise attempt to derive the source code, models, model weights, parameters, architecture, methods or any other non-public part of the Service;
• extract, copy, scrape or reconstruct non-public source code, model parameters, security mechanisms, interfaces or confidential technical information;
• use automated, adversarial or model-extraction techniques to clone, distil, replicate or benchmark any proprietary part of the Service or its classification technology;
• bypass, disable, probe or defeat any access control, usage limit, encryption or other technical safeguard; or
• use the Service, its outputs or its data to develop, train, test, improve or market a competing or substitute product or service, or any machine-learning model, without our written permission.

9.2 These restrictions apply to the proprietary parts of the Service. They do not restrict a right expressly granted to you by the licence governing a third-party or open-source component.

9.3 A breach of this Section or Section 8 is a material breach. Where lawful, we may immediately suspend or terminate access and seek injunctive relief, damages and any other available remedy; you agree that a breach of this Section may cause harm for which damages alone are inadequate, so we may seek injunctive relief without posting a bond where the law allows.

10. ADVERTISING AND CREDITS

10.1 The Service displays third-party advertising. An advertisement is not an endorsement, and we are not responsible for an advertiser's content, offers or conduct; your dealings with an advertiser are between you and that advertiser. Report inappropriate advertisements to support@esmartbin.com with a screenshot.

10.2 Scan credits are granted by us. Where offered, you may choose to watch a rewarded advertisement for limited additional credits; rewarded advertising is always optional. You may also receive bonus credits for keeping a daily sorting streak and for sharing the App and, in the Android App, when a friend joins with your invite code or you join with theirs, or when you redeem a promotional code. We may also grant a promotional allowance of credits to members of a participating organisation, school, employer or community group, applied to your account through our website when you sign up through that organisation's invitation or, in the Android App, when you enter that organisation's code. Credits and promotional allowances are personal, non-transferable, have no cash value, are not property or a payment instrument, cannot be exchanged for money, and may expire. We may correct, suspend or withdraw a credit or allowance granted in error or obtained through fraud, abuse or breach of these Terms. Rules shown with a specific promotion also apply. Your mandatory consumer rights are unaffected.

11. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

11.1 Except for material under a separate licence, the Service and its branding, name, logo, interface, text, graphics, content and compilations are owned by or licensed to eSmart Bin and protected by intellectual-property laws. We grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right to install and use the Service for its intended personal purpose on a device you own or control. No ownership transfers, and all rights not expressly granted are reserved.

11.2 The App incorporates third-party and open-source material governed by its own licences, which control for that material; the required licences and attributions are provided with the App.

11.3 You may use a classification result for your own personal disposal decision. You may not compile, redistribute, republish or commercialise results, or use them as prohibited in Sections 8 and 9.

12. THIRD-PARTY SERVICES

Sign-in providers, app marketplaces, operating systems, maps applications, advertising providers and other linked services are provided by third parties under their own terms and privacy policies. We do not control and are not responsible for them, and a link, integration or advertisement is not an endorsement.

13. SUSPENSION, TERMINATION AND CHANGES

13.1 You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We may restrict, suspend or terminate a feature, credit, promotional allowance or account — with or without notice where circumstances require — if we reasonably determine that you have materially or repeatedly breached these Terms, are under the minimum age, are engaged in fraud, abuse, artificial advertising activity or conduct creating security or legal risk, are recreating a suspended account, or that we must do so to comply with law, or because we are discontinuing the Service or withdrawing it from your territory. We will give any notice, reason or review that applicable law requires; contact support@esmartbin.com if you believe a restriction was applied in error.

13.2 We may update the Service, its supported devices, usage limits and non-essential features. We may also change these Terms: we will give at least 30 days' advance notice in the App or by email of a change that materially and adversely affects you, and a change to Section 18 (Disputes) will be presented for your acceptance before it applies to you. If you do not accept a change, stop using the Service and delete your account before it takes effect; continued use afterwards means you accept it. Your mandatory rights are unaffected.

13.3 Provisions that by their nature should survive termination — including Sections 3.2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10.2, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 — survive.

14. DISCLAIMERS

14.1 Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits a guarantee, warranty, right or remedy that applicable law does not allow us to exclude or limit; if you are a consumer, you have legal rights these Terms do not affect.

14.2 Subject to Section 14.1, the Service is provided "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE". To the maximum extent permitted by law, we and our affiliates and licensors disclaim all warranties, express, implied, statutory or otherwise — including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, satisfactory quality, accuracy, non-infringement and any warranty arising from course of dealing or trade usage — and we do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free, that any classification, instruction, estimate, advertisement or link is correct, complete or suitable for your situation, or that any defect will be corrected.

15. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

15.1 Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including — where applicable — for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, wilful misconduct or gross negligence, or breach of a non-waivable consumer guarantee.

15.2 Subject to Section 15.1 and to the maximum extent permitted by law, eSmart Bin, its partners, personnel, affiliates and licensors are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, punitive or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, data, opportunity, goodwill or anticipated savings, including loss arising from reliance on a classification result or estimate; disposal of an item contrary to the instructions of a local authority or facility; handling or experimenting with a hazardous, regulated or unknown item; a third-party advertisement, advertiser, link or service; unauthorised account use not caused by us; or your breach of these Terms.

15.3 Subject to Section 15.1 and where a cap is lawful, our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts you paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the event giving rise to liability and (b) one hundred United States dollars (USD 100) or its local equivalent. The Service is free, so in most cases (b) applies. These allocations of risk are a fundamental basis on which we provide a free Service and apply even if a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose.

16. INDEMNITY

To the maximum extent permitted by law, you will indemnify and hold harmless eSmart Bin, its partners, personnel, affiliates and licensors against any third-party claim, and resulting losses, costs and reasonable legal fees, arising out of your breach of Section 7 (your submissions), Section 8 (acceptable use) or Section 9 (reverse engineering), or your use of the Service in breach of applicable law. This Section does not apply where you are a consumer and the law applicable to you does not permit it, and it never extends to loss caused by our own breach or negligence. We will notify you promptly of any such claim and will not settle it without your consent, not to be unreasonably withheld.

17. TRADE CONTROLS

You must comply with applicable trade, sanctions and export-control laws. You represent that you are not located in, ordinarily resident in, or acting for a person in, a country or territory subject to a comprehensive embargo applicable to us, and that you are not on any restricted-party list.

18. DISPUTES

18.1 Talk to us first. Before starting any formal proceeding, contact support@esmartbin.com describing the problem and the resolution you want; we will try in good faith to resolve it within 60 days. This step is a condition of bringing a claim, except for urgent injunctive relief or a small-claims action, and any limitation period is paused while it runs.

18.2 UNITED STATES — GOVERNING LAW, ARBITRATION AND CLASS-ACTION WAIVER

PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. IT AFFECTS YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS.

(a) Governing law and forum. If you are resident in the United States, these Terms and any related dispute are governed by the law of the State of California, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules, except that this arbitration agreement is governed by the Federal Arbitration Act. A dispute not subject to arbitration will be brought exclusively in the federal or state courts in San Francisco County, California, or, at your election, a court with jurisdiction where you live. Nothing in this subsection deprives you of the protection of the consumer-protection law of your state of residence.

(b) Agreement to arbitrate; class waiver. You and eSmart Bin agree that any dispute, claim or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by final and binding individual arbitration, not in court, except as stated in (d). Claims may be brought only on an individual basis — not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, consolidated, private-attorney-general or representative proceeding — and you and eSmart Bin knowingly and irrevocably waive any right to a jury trial. The arbitrator may award relief only in favour of the individual party seeking it and only to the extent necessary for that party's individual claim.

(c) 30-day opt-out. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, or of any change to this Section, by emailing support@esmartbin.com with the subject "Arbitration Opt-Out" and your name and account email. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms, and subsection (a) still governs.

(d) Exceptions. Either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court, and either party may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in court to protect intellectual property, confidential information or the security of the Service. A claim for public injunctive relief may be brought in court.

(e) Procedure. Arbitration will be administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules and, where applicable, its Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules, each as in force at the time; if the AAA is unavailable or declines, by JAMS under its Streamlined Arbitration Rules and Mass Arbitration Procedures, or another provider the parties agree on in writing. eSmart Bin will pay all filing, administrative and arbitrator fees that exceed what you would have paid to file the same claim in the court where you live. Arbitration is conducted in English, on documents unless the arbitrator orders otherwise, with any hearing held remotely or where you live. The arbitrator decides questions about the interpretation, applicability, enforceability and formation of this arbitration agreement, except that a court decides whether the class waiver in (b) is enforceable.

(f) Severability. If the class waiver in (b) is held unenforceable as to a particular claim or form of relief, this Section 18.2 will not apply to that claim or relief, which will be brought in a court identified in (a); the remainder of this Section continues to apply to all other claims.

18.3 EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA, UNITED KINGDOM AND SWITZERLAND (CONSUMERS)

Section 18.2 does not apply to you. These Terms are governed by the law of the country in which you are habitually resident, you may bring proceedings in the courts of that country, and we may bring proceedings against you only there. Nothing in these Terms deprives you of the protection of mandatory provisions of your country's law. You may use an alternative dispute-resolution body; we are not obliged to participate and will tell you if we decline.

Right of withdrawal. As a consumer you may withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving a reason. For the App's digital content, you expressly request that supply begins immediately on installation and first use and acknowledge that once supply has begun you lose the right to withdraw from that supply; for the ongoing account service, the right runs for the full 14 days. The Service is free, so no payment or refund arises, and you can in any case stop using the Service and delete your account at any time at no cost. To withdraw, send a clear statement to support@esmartbin.com.

18.4 EVERYONE ELSE

If you are not resident in the United States, the EEA, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, these Terms are governed by the laws of India, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules, and subject to your mandatory consumer rights the courts at Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India have non-exclusive jurisdiction.

18.5 CONSUMERS GENERALLY; TIME TO BRING CLAIMS

Nothing in this Section 18 deprives you, as a consumer, of a mandatory protection or of access to a court, consumer forum, regulator or ombudsman available under the law of the country where you live. Where the law applicable to you permits a contractual time limit, any claim relating to the Service or these Terms should be brought within one year after it arises; this does not apply where the law applicable to you provides otherwise, including where these Terms are governed by the laws of India.

19. GENERAL

Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy and any feature-specific rules we publish form the entire agreement about the Service and supersede earlier agreements on the same subject; a feature-specific rule prevails for that feature. A mandatory law that applies to you prevails over inconsistent wording. Severability; no waiver. If a provision is held unenforceable it will be enforced to the maximum permissible extent or removed, and the rest remains in effect; a failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. Assignment. You may not assign these Terms or your account; we may assign them to an affiliate or successor in a merger, acquisition, reorganisation or sale, subject to applicable notice and your mandatory rights. Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control; this does not affect your right to stop using the Service. Language. These Terms are drafted in English; where we publish a translation, the English version prevails unless the law applicable to you requires otherwise. Notices. We may give notices in the App or to the email address on your account; legal notices to us may be sent to support@esmartbin.com or to the registered office published in our Legal Notice. No third-party rights. Except as stated in Section 20, no one other than you and us may enforce these Terms.

20. APP MARKETPLACE TERMS

Apple's standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement governs the licensing of the iOS application binary; these Terms govern the Service.

20.1 Apple. These Terms are concluded between you and eSmart Bin only, not with Apple; eSmart Bin, not Apple, is solely responsible for the App and its content. Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support. In the event of any failure of the App to conform to an applicable warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple will refund any purchase price paid; to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation. eSmart Bin, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claim relating to the App — including product-liability, regulatory and consumer-protection or privacy claims — and for the investigation and defence of any third-party intellectual-property claim. You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated as "terrorist supporting", and are not on any US Government prohibited or restricted list. You must comply with applicable third-party terms when using the App. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

20.2 Google. Use of the App obtained from Google Play is also subject to the Google Play Terms of Service. Google is not a party to these Terms and is not responsible for the App.

21. CONTACT INFORMATION

The Service is provided by ESMART BIN GLOBAL LLP (LLPIN ACV-6643). Our registered office and full company details are published in our Legal Notice.

support@esmartbin.com (support, complaints and legal notices) · privacy@esmartbin.com (privacy matters).