Utrecht Cuts Down on Waste Collection Thanks To Sensors

Utrecht is the fourth largest city in the Netherlands, but like many of its Dutch neighbors, this city is densely populated with narrow streets and canals. And that's left the city challenged by a lot of waste in a small space. We use an electric boat to get the waste out of the city for the companies and also use smaller vehicles to collect the garbage from the street. But as the population continued to rise, so did the amount of trash. Utrecht initially turned to underground waste containers as a fix. These containers can hold 20% more waste on average. And when paired with sensors, the city has even more control over its waste. We need to know where is everybody, where is the busy streets, how can we manage the flow of people. You need new sensors, you need new things to do it with the same capacity you did it before. And we were the first, I think, somewhat with our sensors in this kind of scale to place 2 ,500 underground containers with sensors and use it fully to do a dynamic waste collection. In 2017, Utrecht purchased a dynamic waste collection system from B -Waste, a smart entity now part of Waste Vision. This system uses sensors and a software platform that together notify the city when waste containers are filled. fall. The sensors are measuring every hour the depth in the in the container so we know exactly how full a container is. It's a sonar sensor so it sends a sound wave. You sense a sound wave directly down and that gets it shadows up again and it reaches the sensor. It just reads the time it gets between sending and receiving the same sounds. With those sounds it translates to a distance. So our containers are about, I think, four meters deep. So if the sensor of sound goes half than what it used to be, you know, it's for the half full. The data from those sensors then gets sent to WasteVision's software platform. This is where staff can track the filling levels of the containers and even get predictions on when they'll overflow. We are using a capacity planner to see which container needs to be emptied when. we are using in that we take into account the amount of trucks which are available and people of course but also how many during which time is there one or two shifts on the day and it will say well based on all my historical data based on the holidays that are coming historical like christmas there will be a lot more waste all those parameters will be taken in review which predicts when the container should be emptied and it could be that one container has to be emptied at 60 % because it fills up 50 % in a day. On average the technology has reduced waste collection by 35%. In Utrecht the city used to wait until the containers hit 50% full and now they wait until the containers are 75% full to remove the waste. The technology also looks to reduce the number of waste collection on the road but in the greater Utrecht region that's yet to happen because the underground containers aren't as widely deployed there but what about the trash that lands here so it's not in the bin it's just on the street where it's not supposed to be or people take offense of it when it's there and at this point everybody always said well it's just because they're always so full that it's always full so I have to place it beside it and with this data, it was like 20 % full. How can it possibly be that it's next to it? So we kind of found out what we already thought it would be because we kind of suspected it wasn't full at that point. That it's really a behavioral thing instead of a logistics thing. It's a common problem and one we previously explored on Current Insights. A number of SmartWaste vendors are turning to computer vision to detect the waste but for waste vision the answer isn't just in software they have a new solution that combines the power of sensors and software listen to this what we have we are making now and which we will release this year is a sensor which detects if there is waste next to a container or not and which also can show how a fill light how full a container is so we have already system as our sensor is self -calibrating and it knows how full container is we can show a green light when the container is not full and a red light when the container is full so when there is a location with four containers you are able to use the maximum capacity by showing to the citizen how which container is available with the green light and which is not with red light now it all comes as smart waste sensors take on a greater role in smart cities especially during the coven 19 pandemic when stay -at -home orders cause waste to soar right now ultrasonic sensors lead the market but could that change as radar technology gains traction ultrasonic is favored for its low power consumption and low cost but radar is said to be less effective by 10 changes and pressure. So what's the future of the smart waste market? Stay with Current Insights for more updates and if you have a question hit the button below.