Smart Trash, Smart Campus
What better place to implement smart
waste management than a school? Cities and
education facilities across the U.S. are enjoying
the many benefits of intelligent litter and
recycling receptacles.
Individuals charged with waste control are
now able to employ a network of connected
receptacles and software that enables collection,
planning and routing that is substantially more efficient.
Smart enough, in fact, to save an estimated
20 to 40 percent on litter and recycling collection
expenses. Knowing that a large university can easily
generate 9 million pounds of waste in a year, the
savings potential is hard to ignore.
Traditional static systems allow for litter receptacles
to overfill before they are collected — an
aesthetic and olfactory nuisance, for sure — while
others that sit empty are collected anyway. Smart
litter receptacles provide a new approach, allowing
you to allocate resources only where and when they
are needed, not only saving time, but also decreasing
fuel costs, carbon footprints and unsightly
waste overflows.
Using GPS and other sensors, smart receptacles
can monitor and transmit fill level, temperature,
weight, location and more to cloud-based portals.
And they work with any type of waste (general
trash, mixed recyclables, paper, glass, metals, etc.)
Monitoring containers provides a holistic view of an
area’s trash and recycling status while improving
landfill diversion rates.
To maintain aesthetics, some sensors can
be hidden within a litter receptacle or recycling
station, which provides the added benefit of
preventing tampering. Along with smart design,
factors such as durability are important to consider
in choosing a smart waste management system.
Sensors should also be built to remain reliable and
accurate even in harsh environmental conditions to
meet the challenges receptacles face in high-use
environments such as a campus.
Learn what smart waste management can do
for your bottom line.
This article originally appeared in the issue of .
About the Author
Emma Skalka is vice president of Sales and Marketing at Victor Stanley in Dunkirk, MD.