Future of waste management is here – bringing tech to waste

 

Lunch and Learn: Waste Management is a Collective Responsibility ...

A growing global concern – waste!

According to the World Bank, annual global waste production could increase by 70% within few decades unless there are major changes to the existing systems. Currently, humans annually produce about 2.01 billion tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) that could reach up to 3.4 billion tons by 2050.[1] It is estimated that less than 15% of today’s waste is recycled and 30-40% is mismanaged (dumped or openly burned). In low-income countries, the portion of mismanaged waste is estimated to be 93%. The consequences of simply dumping wastes are detrimental for the planet as well as our lives. Improper waste management results in:[2]

  • Pollution of soil due to hazardous chemicals that eventually become part of our food supply
  • Air pollution from greenhouse and toxic gases generated at landfills where wastes are incinerated
  • Pollution of oceans with 13 million tons of plastic flowing into the ocean each year meaning that there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050
  • Pollution of groundwater as 280 billion tons of groundwater is contaminated every year, exacerbating the global fresh water shortage

The world produces 2 billion tons of trash. Can technology help ...

According to the Guardian, mismanaged waste is resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of people globally every year.[3] To make matters worse, the charity Tearfund claims that the death toll can be up to 1 million people. It is a fact that Earth cannot sustain such amounts of waste. According to The World Counts, “we already push 75 percent above what the Earth can sustain in the long run with regard to resource extraction and absorption of waste.”

This global problem could be solved through a combination of new technologies and changes in social behavior. Today there are numerous companies and local authorities tackling this waste problem around the world through various methods that include:[4]

  • Capturing the methane gas produced from decomposing organic wastes for electricity generation
  • Treating dioxins and other emissions produced during the incineration process
  • Sorting wastes by using robot and automated technology; a good example is the Swedish trash collection company NSR AB that uses near-infrared beams to identify and segregate plastic
  • “Digesting” plastics through natural enzymes to produce sellable chemicals, such as mono-ethylene glycol

However, these technologies are often too expensive or require more time before becoming commercially widespread. Ultimately, we believe that the best solution is to reduce the amount of municipal waste by incentivizing waste producers including but not limited to restaurants, shops, and local businesses.

In our project, we propose to explore an integrated waste management solution by partnering with garbage collection companies and businesses to install sensors on existing trash bins that can track and record the level of trash in the bins. This will not only enable a dynamic trash collection process but also encourage waste producers to change their behaviour by making them “waste” conscious.  

The World Bank’s research points to a gap in the current waste management system and a strong need for a modern waste management infrastructure, and this is what we would like to address with our project.

Smart waste management is key to achieving goals in sustainable development

Our goal is to transform the traditional way of collecting and segregating waste from businesses and in the long-run, from households.

The current process of waste management begins with communities disposing off their trash in waste bins either in their residential units or in public waste bins. After that, the trash is collected by either private companies or municipalities in fixed truck routes and sent to temporary collection centres, which is then sent to landfills or recycling centres. This traditional method leads to inefficiencies and is environmentally unsustainable. At the time of collection, some of the trash bins may be under-filled. Thus, there is a non-uniform distribution of waste in the containers, and the fixed truck schedules based on estimates lead to excessive resources usage and additional costs. If the trash bins are overfilled, they can lead to unhygienic conditions and cause environmental pollution. For a customer view-point, there is generally a fixed monthly billing regardless of the amount of trash that is disposed, with additional fees for overfilling and contamination due to missed pick-ups.

Waste collectors given 'significant' fines - BBC News

Woodlands officials urge extra caution with trash disposal ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our passion is to minimize operational, physical and informational redundancies in the waste management value chain in order to create a more sustainable society. We want to tackle the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and their underlying targets:

11.6 By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management

12.5 By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse

14.1 By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution

Bringing technology to waste management

There is a need for a large-scale waste management solution that can measure the trash bin fill levels and optimize the truck routes. We believe innovation can be put into place to surf the wave of waste management, increase efficiencies and productivity, reduce overages and underages, and help promote an increasingly waste conscious society. Our project focuses on delivering a comprehensive, smart waste management solution using cloud-based software connected to an IoT smart sensor and smart bin technology.

The waste technology solutions includes a combination of:

Sensor in waste bins that monitor fill-level

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Dynamic analytics platform for businesses to see waste generation trends

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Dynamic routing & planning capabilities for waste collectors to deploy trucks

 

  • Waste Monitoring Sensor: The sensor can be installed in any trash bin, and it enables users to monitor the fill levels of trash 24/7. It allows waste collectors to optimize the collection routes and minimize the overflows and unnecessary pickups.
  • Waste Analytics to Businesses: The technology also makes it possible to provide waste audit reports to businesses in order to provide feedback report about the amount, type and time of the disposals. By visualizing the waste, companies will be more aware of recycling and reduction of future waste.

There are several companies globally making efforts to introduce sensor technology to waste disposal.

  • Nordsence, headquartered in Denmark, optimizes the waste collection process by monitoring container levels and delivering dynamic directions to a driver. In February 2019, Nordsense partnered with San Francisco to optimize the waste collection in the city.
  • Bigbelly is a solar powered, trash-compacting bin, manufactured by U.S. company Bigbelly Solar for use in public spaces. The bin’s compaction mechanism increases its capacity by five times.
  • Ecube Labs, headquartered in South Korea, is a manufacturer of smart and connected waste bins and solar-powered portable waste compactors.
  • Enevo, founded in Finland, began providing waste data from dumpster sensors using its proprietary analytics software. Enevo now provides full management of waste and recycling services for restaurant, retail and commercial property customers.

Stakeholders in the waste management industry

An integrated waste management system would need to partner with municipal corporations, international bodies, and other waste management enterprises at various levels in the value chain. These partnerships would help increase outreach, access financing, and leverage infrastructure for our own benefit and of the partners and stakeholders at large.

Retailers: Retailers usually have large rubbish such as plastic packages, cardboards, tapes and others which can fluctuate depending on season. For example, during Christmas season, retailers can expect more bulky waste for Christmas gifts, but the waste collection is only conducted in a scheduled time, creating inefficient operations and poor customer experience. In addition, retailers do not keep track on the amount and type of waste they produce every day.

Restaurants: Restaurants normally produce plastic and food waste. Waste management is a crucial part of their business, and especially so is the perception of customers towards their waste practises. As customers become more conscious about environmentally-friendly practises, restaurants are trying to become more sustainable in their waste management. Additionally,  restaurants are not aware of the amount and type of wastes they produce every day.

Households: Depending on the country, some households can throw out rubbish only in scheduled time, causing an inconvenience because people have to keep the rubbish at home for some days until waste collectors come. Sometimes trash is piled up and left outside for a long time, causing an unpleasant odour and nuisance in the neighbourhood.

Municipalities / Waste Collectors: Cities and municipalities often provide waste collection services to maintain a clean city environment. However, due to overflows of trash, municipalities often fail to keep the environment pleasant for residents and visitors. In addition to this, the pick-up routes, time and frequencies are all fixed, leading to unnecessary pickups and overflows of rubbish in public space.

Waste is everyone’s business

The global smart waste management market can expect growth by an impressive 18.6% % CAGR during the forecast period by 2025. With this, the market’s valuation can scale a valuation of USD 7.8 billion by 2025, asserts Market Research Future (MRFR) in a detailed study[5]. Growing awareness of the significant increase in waste products across the globe and urgency in strategizing waste management to achieve remarkable outcomes are leading to the growing adoption of smart waste management solutions across industries.

By providing analytics platforms that can eliminate these efficiencies for both the players, our project aims to generate the following revenue streams, initially targeting the local government agencies and waste collectors, followed by the businesses.

(i) Waste Collectors / Local Government Agencies

Our idea is to charge a basic yearly package that includes installation of sensors with a fill-level monitoring software, and a premium yearly package which also includes the dynamic route optimization software for the trucks. The actual pricing will vary based on each agency’s current operations, scale and savings opportunities.

Singapore aims to cut waste sent to landfill by 30%, Environment ...

 

Pricing Model

Basic

Installation and maintenance of sensors in existing trash bins

Waste Analytics Dashboard with fill-level information

Premium

All features of the basic package including:

Route Optimization Software: Turn manually scheduled routes into fully optimized routes using machine learning algorithms

(ii) Businesses

If businesses have got a sensor installed in their waste bins, we can offer the following packages for them to get better insights into their waste generation trends to create certifications, and even liaise with their corresponding waste collectors to create a dynamic pricing model. Similar to the pricing model for waste collectors, it will vary based on the company’s size and current operations.

Restaurants and bars slammed over lack of recycling

Pricing Model

Basic

Customized assessment of waste generation patterns

Scorecard & performance benchmarking

Share scorecard with members in the network

Sustainability how-to guides & industry profiles

Premium

All features of the basic package including:

Dynamic Pricing Mechanism: Create a dynamic pricing model with the associated waste collector so that payment is done only when a collection occurs.

 

Aligning sustainability with financial goals

We believe that by introducing the following innovations in the traditional waste management business model, both the customers will be incentivised to use the product not just to achieve sustainability goals but also to save costs.

Resequencing and Specialization

Because sensors can provide real-time trash volume and recycling efficiency baselines, there is an opportunity to use this granular information to resequence and specialize how both trucks are deployed and routes are executed to utilize resources better.

Cost savings for waste collectors: With the new system the operator can aggregate forecasts for the whole city and dispatch an optimal number of collecting trucks, optimal kinds of trucks given the expected profile of trash and disposal conditions, as well as optimizing route to balance the utilization of trucks.

Newsvendor Model

Traditional waste management qualifies as a newsvendor model problem because it requires forecasting volume of demand, allocating trucks before initiating routes, and would cost time and money to adjust routes after planning. For these expenses, recourse is expensive (e.g. buying/selling trucks, severance package). There are also consequences for getting the decisions wrong: underage results in inability to collect all trash, while overage translates in idle time for employees and infrastructure.

Cost savings for waste collectors: Having more real-time sensor measurements reduces the time gap between capacity planning and truck deployments, allowing a reduction in the overage and underage batches incurred on planned routes. For instance, knowing the average waste amount and variability for a whole year or season, more precise and accurate forecasts can be made for the optimal number of trucks and employees needed.

Personalization

There are also shared savings opportunities in switching from the traditional pooled average costing model to a usage-based costing model. In the traditional model since only net volume of trash is measured, it is difficult to implement effective measures that encourage the diverse profiles of trash disposers to minimize waste inefficiencies.

Cost savings for businesses: With this system, customers who dispose waste efficiently can be overtly rewarded by saving money (dynamic pricing and pay-per-usage model). At a policy level, this data can be used to design customized recycling incentive programs to incentivize different profiles of recyclers into behaviours that reward society at large more productively.

 

Limitations of the model

Resistance from Public Institutions

While the technology can greatly benefit the waste management process, there is a risk that governments in certain countries can be resistant to the privatisation of this process. Municipalities and traditional haulers who are against privatisation of waste management may argue that even though the city is not performing the collection, customer complaints may still come to them and not the private hauler. This solution can reduce man-power requirements and traditional haulers, which may lead to an increase in unemployment.

Reliance on Technology

Since this process relies on the sensor technology, there is a high up-front cost to install the hardware in all the waste bins. Additionally, any sensor maintenance may require site visits which increases operational costs. Since the entire process is software-based, any compromises to the technology such as hacks and technology glitches can jeopardize the entire platform. Furthermore, if the technology is non-proprietary, there is a risk of companies replicating the software and gaining market share.

Standardization

Another risk opportunity is if the adoption of sensor technology does not happen in a standard or uniform way. If the trash sensor ecosystem ends up diversified and each trash sensor company uses different standards for measurement and data sharing, these technology companies could compete away the profits or the trash collector agencies could incur scaling and complexity costs from having to engage with multiple sensor companies.

Next steps – from idea to reality

Ensuring the feasibility of the whole business model is essential to move forward with the project. As such, we believe that a cost-effective and efficient way to test the project is by partnering with a government environmental agency of a forward-thinking country or city to start a pilot program. However, before launching our pilot program the immediate next steps for us are the following:

  • Seek seed funding from government (via grants) or venture capital firms to develop, manufacture and step up the technology for the pilot;
  • Dialogue with trash collectors to identify initially relevant data that would be helpful for them and ask for initial feedback on the feasibility of the product;
  • Start conversations with technology partners and request for quotes to develop and manufacture the hardware and software systems

Pilot testing to ensure viability

Specifically, we are looking into partnering with the National Environmental Agency (“NEA”) of Singapore whose mandate includes developing waste management systems, and licensing collection of trash to waste collection contractors. We feel that our goal to develop more efficient and effective waste management systems to saves costs and reduce waste will be aligned with theirs. This will incentivize NEA to support our pilot program financially and operationally.

Waste Management & Recycling Association of Singapore (WMRAS)

Our first step would be to set clear and quantifiable goals that will be measured throughout the pilot. Important aspects of the business model that we want to asses are the following:

1. Financial viability of the project for waste collectors (costs of using our system vs. status quo);

2. Technical feasibility of adapting the technology and system in actual practice;

3. Accuracy of data collection and helpfulness of waste analysis report; and

4. Functionality and usability of the dashboard platform in monitoring waste levels and optimizing routes.

Next, with the help of NEA and its 4 accredited waste collection partners (each one is assigned a specific area out of 6), we will determine the most appropriate testing area for the pilot. We will choose an area that covers a large enough population to gather sufficient data but manageable enough to minimize costs and not overwhelm the initial set up. We are looking into a neighborhood with a considerable number commercial establishments and residential households (condominiums), which produce constant daily flow of waste, allowing the program to simulate a real-life collection system.

PWC sectors

Since the pilot is really an opportunity for trial, error and improvement, we want sufficient time to run this. We are looking into a timeframe of two months. In that period, the assigned waste collector of the chosen testing area will be instructed to install our sensor devices to the collection bins covered by the pilot, use our system to track waste levels for each bin, and reconfigure collection routes given the data we provide. Most importantly, during the pilot, we will have regular feedback sessions with waste collectors to understand the challenges they faced and in parallel, troubleshoot any technical or operational issues we encounter.

We also plan to generate a monthly waste analysis report and discuss the results in detail with the waste collector and the businesses whose trash bins have sensors . Gathering their comments about the report will allow us to revise this into a form most useful for them and their business.

In the pilot, we also aim to train and provide resources to the waste collector that will guide them in understanding and using our technology and software. This will empower them to be comfortable operating the dashboard of our system and allow them to really see the added value of the product. We think that providing proper training during the pilot will encourage the NEA and the waste collectors to adopt the system post-pilot.

We believe that if the pilot shows positive results, having the regulatory agency and waste collector partners on board early in the process allows us to scale faster as they can mandate and influence other licensed waste collectors to use our system. These partnerships will also provide us resources and insights to improve our product (additional functions) since our partners know the waste management landscape of the country better than anyone.

Scaling the business and potential barriers

Every nation needs a waste management system. Hence, after expanding our business nation-wide in Singapore and building a track record, we plan to expand the business globally. To scale efficiently, we plan to license or franchise our products to tech companies or waste collection companies in other countries. Given that waste management is often government regulated, we feel the need to get the government’s buy-in by forging partnerships with other waste management agencies, who can mandate or encourage other waste collectors to use our product.

A barrier for scaling that we see is the limited relationships we have with environment agencies around the world. To mitigate this, we plan to leverage on our relationship with the NEA to introduce and recommend us to other waste management agencies of different countries. We will present how our product has improved waste management in Singapore to gain their interest. We will also ask for their input on how to adjust our technology to their local context, to ensure fit of our product to the country.

While getting government buy-in is essentially, another barrier for scaling which we see is low acceptance of customers to new technology, especially in third-world countries. Most traditional waste collection businesses are used to the “fixed” collection system and may be apprehensive to change to a more technologically-based system. To change their mindset, we will make the interface our dashboard very simple to understand and we will assure these companies that we will provide sufficient training to ensure smooth transition to our system. We also plan to show them how our current customers have benefited from our product through cost savings. We can also provide incentives such as discounts for long-term contracts.

Another barrier we see is the high capital and overhead expenditures needed to manufacture large volumes of sensors and operate service centers globally. Most manufacturers of hardware will require minimum orders. To manage this, we plan to resequence our process by only ordering from our manufacturers when we sign contracts with waste collectors. To incentives manufacturers to agree, we can create joint ventures for revenue sharing agreements to remove minimum orders requirements. This eliminates demand risk for us and provides higher margin for them. For the costs to operate globally, instead of having an office per country, we can pool our service centers in limited countries. This will be possible since our software system is tech-based and our services can be done virtually. If we see, that physical presence is necessary to provide the service that our customers want, we can raise funds through the help of the VC network of instead globally.

Additionally, based on our initial research, the mandated public waste collectors currently segregate collected trash manually using human workforce. In the long-term, we want to integrate Artificial Intelligent technology to segregate trash as this allows for faster waste segregation and minimizes hazardous effects on the health of waste workers in the industry. As such, we will also begin to speak with A.I. experts to assess how best to integrate such technology to our product.

Robots begin to attack waste and dirt - The Robot Report

 

Group Members (20D)

Ashwini Vaidya

Ghihyun Kim

John Palma

Yukihiro Kondo

 

References

[1] https://www.wastedive.com/news/world-bank-global-waste-generation-2050/533031/#:~:text=Currently%2C%20about%202.01%20billion%20metric,recycled%20and%205.5%25%20is%20composted.

[2] https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/waste/global-waste-problem

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/14/mismanaged-waste-kills-up-to-a-million-people-a-year-globally

[4] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-07-11/how-the-world-can-solve-its-2-billion-ton-trash-problem

[5] https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/smart-waste-management-market—covid-19-analysis-sales-revenue-grow-pricing-and-industry-growth-analysis-factors-players-by-2025-2020-05-06?tesla=y

 

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