You may wonder how smart waste management actually works and what it really means. It’s important to note that there are three key technologies that are involved in smart waste management. Smart waste sensors, smart compacting bins and supporting technologies.
- Smart Waste Sensors – Waste Sensors are small devices, which usually attach to the top of the bin so they can read the fill level of a bin, reporting it’s reading back to the smart waste platform with the fill level. The platform then monitors the fill levels and provides a dashboard for the waste team to see how full each bin is remotely. These services also allows thresholds to be set to alert the collection team when the bin reaches 80% full for example, making it more proactive and allowing workflows to be optimised.
- Smart Compacting Bins – Compacting bins work in a similar way by providing fill level sensors, but also compact waste to allow for greater capacity to be held within the bin. You may have seen these around and some models hold up to 7 times the amount of rubbish as a regular bin. These are commonly used in remote locations (to minimise collections) or busy areas, to allow the waste team to keep trucks out of the city traffic during the day.
- Supporting Technologies – The real magic happens when things can be automated, and efficiencies can be realised. The smart waste systems often connect to task management tools to allow jobs and tasks to be created for field workers, and to avoid the need to have someone monitoring a dashboard. This is where the collection list could be automatically created for the waste team, so the drivers know exactly where to go.
Its important to note that technology alone doesn’t solve smart waste challenges, it also needs people and change management to ensure new processes are adopted and it needs a refined processes to allow the efficiencies can be realised.
If you aren’t sure where to start, contact our team and we can help you to understand your situation and make recommendations to help achieve your goals.