Design Precedent
In order to reduce the garbage odor, we will have to look at the source of the problem. In Ho Chi Minh city, classifying each type of waste is something not everyone do. There are garbage bins that are designed or have instruction of which type of waste to put in. However, not many places have these separating bins as most of trash bins in the city are the single container type. Moreover, it will cost extra time and money to have a sorting plant at the landfill to separate each type of trash manually. It is the reason why most garbage gets buried in Ho Chi Minh city. According to people in residential areas near Da Phuoc Landfill, not only does the garbage odor come from the landfill specifically but also from the overfilled trash bins through out the streets as a result of not enough landfill workers who has the job of collecting the trash. In the area, trash-collecting trucks only come at one specific time of the day. This resulted in the garbage odor from the garbage bins adding to the odor from landfills.
To solve this problem, CleanRobotics company has developed the first smart waste bin in the world in 2015 (Kaverina 2018). The project was supported by HAX, the largest hardware startup accelerator and AlphaLab Gear (ibid). Together they developed TrashBot, a smart trash bin that can separate landfill waste and recyclables using AI machine learning, camera as computer vision and sensors.
How does the bin work?
The smart bin has two trash receiver and three separate bins. Two smaller recyclables container and one landfill waste container in the middle. As trash is put into the bin, camera and sensor take photo of the garbage and analyse the trash in 3 seconds with 90% of accuracy rate. The item is weighted on a Teflon plastic shelf, liquid (if any) are drained. Then the TrashBot will decide whether the item belongs to the landfill waste or recyclables item and send them to the right container.
The bin also have the sensor that can notify the garbage collector company that the trash bins are full and need to be emptied. This way, garbage bins will no longer be overfilled.
Case study
TrashBot has already been tested at one of the largest mall in Australia, Vicinity Centre, Pittsburgh International Airport and Convention Center and received good results. It could be seen clearly that garbages are reduced and workers no longer needs to clean up the overfilled bins. The screen on TrashBot shows educational information content that raise people’ awareness. From monitoring results, people tends to look at the screen after they put the trash in expecting to see what would happen inside the bin. Therefore, the company CleanRobotics is developing the TrashBot so that whenever people put the item in the opening, the screen will show the inside of the bin.
Why don’t people recycle?
Recycle is sometimes difficult for people to understand. With many types of waste materials, different garbage bins and many recycling rules, it can be confusing. When being asked, most people admitted times when they stand in front of the garbage bin and confused whether the item belong to which categories (Column Five 2012). Moreover, tricky recycling rules leads people to make mistakes of putting the item into the wrong bin and messing up the whole batch, even when they have the good intention.
Why aren’t smart trash bins used widely in cities?
Smart trash bins are a great solution to the environmental problems, however, most of the society has a different point of view. According to surveys, people expressed many concerns towards the appearance of the new smart trash bins on the market nowadays. It has been shown that the high pricing of these innovative inventions is hindering them from reaching the market (Elveru, Daws, Hammes, and McKinney 2015, p.24-27). Most people claimed that city has already have a number of trash bins throughout the streets so there is no need for a smart bin with such high price (Lundin, Ozkil, Jensen & Jakob 2017). It is also much more simpler to hire more waste collector to create job opportunity for people than invest a large amount of money for advanced technology like these smart bins (ibid). As for these reasons, many brands of smart bins haven’t received the result of impacts on society.
Reference
Column Five 2012,’Infographic: Why don’t Americans Recycle?’, Newspaper [online], available at: <https://www.good.is/infographics/infographic-why-don-t-americans-recycle>
Elveru, E Daws, D Hammes, T Mc.Kinney, K 2012,’Taking the green initiative’.
Kaverina, S 2018,’Sort It Out: TrashBot, a Smart Bin developed by CleanRobotics, uses AI to help improve waste management’, Newspaper [online], available at: <https://medium.com/makersbootcamp/sort-it-out-a-smart-trash-bin-from-cleanrobotics-66a46bedff11>
Lundin, C Ozkil, A Ozkil, G Jensen, A Jensen, S Jakob 2017,’Smart Cities: A Case Study in Waste Monitoring and Management’.
CleanRobotics, ‘CleanRobotics TrashBot using AI to sort trash’, video, YouTube, Ho Chi Minh city, Viet Nam, viewed on 22 June 2019.
Fig.1. CleanRobotics Facebook, ‘TrashBot with CleanRobotics team’, photograph, Ho Chi Minh city, Viet Nam, viewed on 22 June 2019.
Fig.2. Column Five 2012, ‘Infographic: Why don’t Americans Recycle?’, photograph, Ho Chi Minh city, Viet Nam, viewed on 22 June 2019.
Fig.3. CleanRobotics Facebook, ‘TrashBot booth at the Thrival Innovation Festival‘, photograph, Ho Chi Minh city, Viet Nam, viewed on 22 June 2019.
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