Smart Waste Management with IoT

ace it, waste happens. Every supply chain must deal with it. That’s why there are waste management companies and solutions, though they have been hampered by inadequate information flow, which leads to another form of waste – that of time and energy. Now, IoT is enabling smarter solutions, and rapid-application development (RAD) platforms make it faster and easier to implement effective waste management.

UK-based ISB Global, a Value Added Reseller (VAR) of SAP software solutions, is also a Software Solutions & Technology Partner (SSTP) for Waste & Recycling One. That software solution, based on SAP Business One ERP platform, creates smart waste management application based on analytics and mobility.  

Below is the video in which ISB describes how its smart bins systems increase efficiency, lowers logistical costs, and reduces carbon emissions as a result. It also automates the process of identifying the best route for the day’s waste collection needs and the generation of bills based on real time data on the work done.

The sensors pick up on how full the bins are to put in the information that optimizes the pick-up time to when they are full but not yet overflowing. Bluetooth Beacons provide location trackers that can ascertain that they are located where they should be to avoid any confusion or delay for pickup.

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IoT Enables Smarter Waste Management

Supply Chain Recycling Needs More Transparency

With an appreciation of the dangers inherent in unmonitored recycling, HP is committing to greater transparency in the recycling supply chain and calls on other companies to do the same.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. That’s the mantra of sustainability, and some of us commit to it by bringing in our waste for recycling. Unfortunately, what gets dropped off in those receptacles doesn’t always end up being dismantled and reassembled the way we imagined.

Some companies involved are not strictly playing by the rules of recycling in an environmentally responsible way. That’s the finding of the environmental health and justice organization, Basel Action Network (BAN).

As part of its e-Trash Transparency Project, in September BAN published a report called “Scam Recycling: e-Dumping on Asia by US Recyclers.” The organization placed GPS trackers in 205 monitors and printers that contained components identified as “hazardous waste under international law.”

BAN partnered with MIT's Senseable City Labs to produce an online map to show the pathways of the 205 trackers. You can see their routes and how far they traveled here.

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HP Supply Chain Leads the Call for Recycling Transparency

More efficient recycling with 3D printing

We generate so much plastic waste today that it has become a serious environmental problem. Some of us do put aside our plastic bottles for recycling, but even that endeavour requires energy consumption just to get the plastic to a recycling centre. Even more energy is needed for the actual recycling. There is a better way to reuse the plastic, and 3D printing makes it possible.Read more in

3D Printing Plastic — Distributed Recyling and Distributing the Benefits

Joshua Pearce holds a DremelFuge chuck made from shredded plastic milk jugs.