For sure my readers know that I strongly believe that the future of waste collection are the hybrid models involving trucks, bins, citizens and algorithms that will customise and optimise waste collection efficiency and deliver on demand services. I have written about it in my post “The Internet of Bins“. But when I asked for innovative companies to send me new ideas and projects, I received a post named “The Internet of Garbage Trucks” and I realised that this option is really available and maybe it can provide faster results than the Internet of Bins.
So, here is a blog post written by Nadav Leshem, Marketing and Business Development of the company GreenQ -Making Garbage Trucks Smarter. I enjoyed and I hope you will enjoy it too. Please think about the future shaped in the background of this post. And do not forget: send me any new idea that is shaped in a start-up, in one or another way, I will be glad to post innovative and out-of-the-box approaches that drive waste management within the fourth industrial revolution network.
Nadav Leshem, Marketing and Business Development of the company GreenQ -Making Garbage Tracks Smarter
“It was a sunny winter’s day in early 2015. GreenQ’s founders suddenly realized there were billions of dollars being thrown into the garbage and dissolving into CO2 due to an unmonitored and inefficient residential waste collection process. As a result, they founded a startup with the goal of making garbage trucks smarter.
A considerable amount of the garbage in the world is being collected by garbage trucks from trash bins. This vital but complex process is suffering from a lack of measurable data and efficient monitoring and needs to be optimized. Also, waste collection is expensive. A significant portion of the municipalities’ budget is allocated to waste pickup and disposal. For example, the annual expenditure of waste pickup and disposal in the US is 200$B, more than 60$B directed towards collection.
Soaring population growth and rapid urbanization will compound the need for garbage disposal solutions. Indeed, waste disposal will be a significant function of the smart city infrastructure in the future.
GreenQ shines the spotlight on the garbage trucks. “To be cost- effective, we focus on the trucks and not on the bins,” says Shlomy Ashkenazy, GreenQ’s CEO and Founder.
The GreenQ ‘Internet of Garbage’ solution was developed to optimize mass waste collection. The monitoring device is installed on a truck, while waste bins can be tagged with RFID. Waste is monitored and measured on the truck, with big data analytics laying the groundwork for route and fleet optimisation.
The GreenTrack is a tracking device installed on any garbage truck, that weighs incoming waste and predicts the garbage production rate. By that, we optimize every aspect of waste collection from scheduling and routing to major fleet vehicle decisions and contract optimisation.
Here is how the system works in brief.
With every lift of waste bin, the system installed on truck send real time data like bin capacity, location and time, through the cloud straight to any portable device, in an easy to use dashboard, displaying a graphic status of the bins and trucks, recommendation for optimization and alerts for unusual events.
A smart waste collection is a profit generator. Using the the GreenTrack system brings a 30%-40% reduction in truck mileage, fuel savings, manpower and work time, and a major reduction in emissions is. It saves more than third of the residential waste collection expenses.
As far as garbage tech goes, many tech companies provide smart bin technologies, an incredible vision still in its early stages due to high sensor costs, low durability and an absence of significant data like trash bin quantity and location. Smart bins is a technology that is adapting to market needs but currently does not provide a broadly applicable solution to the growing garbage issue.
GreenQ’s solutions are immediate, municipalities and their residents can start saving after just 30 days of data collection and enjoy a quick ROI in less than a year. Applying new disruptive technologies on existing infrastructure is an excellent and efficient way to adapt to both urbanization and digitalization, and where Internet of Garbage vision by GreenQ begins.
GreenQ has already partnered with IBM in the framework of the Smart Cities Initiative and with Deutsche Telecom in the Narrow Band Internet of Things.
