SMART RUBBISH COLLECTION - Observatory of Public Sector Innovation

Smart Rubbish Collection system improves cleanliness, reduces collection costs and increases collection speed. The ROI is 12-18 months. The main target market of the system are all municipalities around the world, especially new municipalities that are building new housing or industrial sites.

Innovation Summary

Innovation Overview

Municipalities who are willing to reduce the investment in the number of collection trucks and willing to reduce the money spent on the general process should invest in this kind of a smart system. Other than the efficiency and less than 18 months return on investment, it also promotes a cleaner and smells free environment. The savings come from

(i) reduced the number of employees per truck (employees could be designated to new or different jobs)

(ii) Fuel savings due to optimum routing

(iii) from the reduced number of trucks that are subject to frequent maintenance costs.

From the citizens point of view other than the cleanness and smell free environment it provides a saving on their tax payments. The saving per truck can go up to 70-80.000 USD per year depending on the collection frequency. Technical Information of the system is as follows

1- Special Rubbish Collection Trucks with special collection mechanism used with alignment sensors and a cabin equipped with a GPRS connected Tablet

2- An underground rubbish bin equipped with wireless sensors that measure the fullness of the bin and sends fullness signals to the operating control center

3- A software that keeps track of smart rubbish collection trucks, calculates the shortest distance of these trucks to the full rubbish bin and sends a collection order to the nearest truck.

Innovation Description

What Makes Your Project Innovative?

The main differences and uniqueness of the system can be summarised as below

1- In the old/present system the operating model of trucks looking after certain streets of the municipality while in this system the truck can operate in a larger area.

2- In the old/present system, the trucks check every rubbish bin, whether full or not. In the new system truck only go to full bins.

3- In the old/present system, the truck requires 3 personnel, including the driver, to perform the rubbish collection. In the new system only one personnel, which is the driver, is sufficient to perform the rubbish collection.

What is the current status of your innovation?

The need for making the innovation was from surveys done on citizens. The highest request has improved the cleanliness of the city. Based on this idea the project was coordinated by Başakşehir Living Lab to improve cleanliness and in the meantime reduce the rubbish collection cost. By working with a technology company the platform was developed and tested in front of Başakşehir Living-Lab in 2015. After some adjustments to the system were introduced to use. In the construction specifications of the municipality construction, companies must put at least one smart rubbish bin under the ground for every 100 flats. Now there are around 500 Smart bins in the municipality.

Innovation Development

Collaborations & Partnerships

1 - The citizens - provided initial survey feedback and performed the beta tests in the test system.

2 - The Living-Lab - provided the project coordination responsibility and the test environment for the testing of the product.

3 - The municipality IT department - provided system design know-how and location information

4 - The Software Development-IT company - did the system design, software development, the communication platform, and all the integrations.

5 - The Rubbish Truck Manufacturing Company - did all the prototyping and manufacturing of smart rubbish bins and smart rubbish collection truck design and manufacturing.

6 - The GSM Company - provided all the know-how and integration for wireless transmission and GPRS transmission.

Innovation Reflections

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

The system has had a major return on investment for the municipality and also has increased the satisfaction and well-being of the citizens. The system has also become a model and benchmark for other municipalities in Istanbul.

Challenges and Failures

The main challenge was the financing of the project which was overcome by a technology development fund.

Conditions for Success

Organizations that believe in new technology developments for the benefit of citizens well-being, for humanity. Also more importantly is developing an innovation that provides a solution to a real problem.

Replication

This solution can be replicated in all municipalities in Türkiye and can be easily adapted to other municipalities around the world.

Lessons Learned

The main experience has been co-creating with citizens as well as co-working with citizens, construction companies, truck companies, and IT companies.

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