A city is often known for its buildings, but construction and maintenance of those buildings consume resources at a frightening rate. To address climate change and meet ESG goals, LEED offers a healthy, efficient, green framework for buildings and communities. LEED projects have diverted an aggregated 80 million tons of waste from landfills, and the volume is expected to increase to 540 million tons by 2030.
In this article, we will discuss how LEED works, LEED for various projects, LEED-certified cities and communities, and the role of waste management.
How LEED Works
To get LEED-certified, a project needs to earn points and go through a verification and review process by GBCI (Green Business Certification Inc.). Projects earn points by following the prerequisites and credits that address carbon, water, energy, waste, health, transportation, material, and indoor environmental quality. The awarded points correspond to the following levels of LEED certification:
Level Platinum: 80+ points
Level Gold: 60-79 points
Level Silver: 50-59 points
Level Certified: 40-49 points
LEED for Different Projects
LEED is not specific to buildings of a certain type. It’s for buildings of all sizes and types and in any building phase, including new construction, interior fit-out, operations and maintenance, and core and shell. To get started with LEED certification, you can select the rating system that best fits your project.
LEED for building design and construction (BD+C) is for new buildings and major renovations. Alongside new construction and core and shell, it includes applications for schools, retail, data centers, hospitals, etc.
LEED for interior design and construction (ID+C) is for complete interior fit-out projects, including commercial interiors, retail, and hospitality.
LEED for building operations and maintenance (O+M) is for existing buildings undergoing improvement work with little to no construction.
LEED for neighborhood development (ND) is for new land development or redevelopment projects. These projects can be at any development stage, from conceptual planning to under construction.
LEED for home is for all residential buildings. However, buildings and homes taller than four stories can also use LEED BD+C.
LEED for cities is for entire and sub-sections of cities. It can measure and manage the city’s water consumption, energy consumption, transportation, waste, and human experience.
LEED-certified Cities and Communities
Since the 20 years that LEED was created, it has been established as a universally agreed-upon holistic system to reduce environmental impacts. Many cities and communities inside and outside of the United States are LEED-certified. From public spaces to airports and much more, LEED is encouraging growth with an emphasis on sustainability. We will discuss some LEED-certified cities and communities and what they’re doing right.
Las Vegas, USA
The famed city of Las Vegas needs no introduction, but did you know it’s a LEED-certified level Gold city with a 4-star rating? Las Vegas became LEED-certified in August 2020 when it implemented strategies to improve the sustainability and standard of living of its residents.
Balboa Park, San Diego
Balboa Park is a historic park in San Diego that got awarded LEED for community certification in 2021. Currently, it’s the only national historic landmark recognized for sustainability achievement through the United States Green Building Council.
Alongside Balboa Park, other places in San Diego, like the San Diego International Airport, have also adopted a zero-waste plan. The Airport Authority successfully diverted nearly 60,000 tons of materials (that would otherwise go to waste) when incorporating construction and demolition waste. They also implemented waste prevention strategies like material reuse and waste diversion strategies like recycling and composting to divert waste from landfills.
Beijing Daxing International Airport, China
Among international buildings, Beijing Daxing Airport is the first project in China that gained the LEED Platinum certification. It is thought to be a driving force for China’s economic growth, emphasizing green and sustainable development.
The Waste Hierarchy and LEED
While people fret more about carbon dioxide emissions coming from aviation, buildings account for nearly 40% of the overall carbon dioxide emissions. Almost a third of the world’s overall waste is construction and demolition waste. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers several strategies to reduce waste ranging from source reduction to waste to energy conversion.
Source Reduction
At the top of the waste hierarchy is source reduction. It’s important because it encourages the use of innovative construction strategies (like prefabrication) to minimize material cutoffs and inefficiencies.
Building and Material Reuse
The second most effective strategy to reduce waste is the reuse of building materials. The use of existing materials reduces the environmental impact of the manufacturing process. Replacing existing materials with new ones requires production and transportation, and it takes many years to offset the associated greenhouse gases via increased building efficiency. In LEED, the reuse of materials is highly encouraged and rewarded. In LEED v4, more flexibility and rewards are offered to all material reuse by projects both in situ and off-site.
Recycling
The most common way to divert waste from landfills is through recycling. Recycling largely depends upon waste sorting, and with recycling technology such as smart bins, it’s easier to sort and process materials right at the time of disposal. Smart bins like TrashBot reduce waste contamination and keep materials in the production stream for longer.
Waste to Energy
Lastly, since a secondary market does not exist for every material, the next best way to divert waste is by converting it to energy. Many countries, including Sweden and Saudi Arabia, are implementing waste-to-energy solutions to reduce the burden on landfills. It can be a viable solution if strict air quality measures are enforced.
How Smart Waste Management Can Help with LEED
Climate change is the biggest threat to our current and future generations. In one of his tweets, former U.S. President Barrack Obama wrote:
“We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it.” —President Obama.
Technology has revolutionized many systems, and smart waste management offers an opportunity to create greener communities. Smart waste management is faster, more efficient, and more cost-effective and helps businesses reduce their impact on the environment, which is LEED’s highest priority. Creating less waste means reducing exposure to pollution and preserving land and habitat.
Ever wondered how much trash is generated at a regular football game? EPA reports that an average college football game produces around 50 to 100 tons of waste. Each year, the Super Bowl generates nearly 40 tons of trash. Across the US, sporting event attendees generate almost 39 million pounds of trash annually.
These numbers are scary, but stadiums are among the biggest and most crowded places. Some are designed with a seating capacity of over 100,000 people (as much as an entire city)! As a general rule of thumb, a large crowd means more trash and more potential stadium recycling opportunities.
In this article, we will discuss where and how to start stadium recycling and discuss stadiums that have implemented a sustainability program.
Stadium Recycling: Where to Start
At stadiums, tens of thousands of people gather to watch games, concerts, and other events. Generally, these places generate tons of trash and potential recycling opportunities. Running sustainable events and implementing a sound recycling program can not only help save the planet, but also thousands of dollars.
There are many opportunities to recycle both inside and outside of the stadium (like in the parking lot). The most common recyclables at the stadium include aluminum cans, plastic beverage bottles, and cardboard boxes. The best part about recycling these three is that they can be collected either separately or together. Additionally, recycling cardboard can be especially beneficial as it can save thousands of dollars in waste disposal.
Many stadiums around the United States are turning toward sustainable solutions. For example, the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle uses rainwater from the roof to make ice for the hockey team. When Falcons fans recycle beer or soda cans, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta cashes in the aluminum and uses the money to build new houses through Habitat for Humanity. Minneapolis takes things a step further by reusing, recycling, or composting any waste generated during the Vikings games and turning the rest into steam that’s used to heat downtown buildings. They also composted or recycled 91% of the trash the 68,000 fans threw out during the 2018 Super Bowl Lll.
How to Get Started with Stadium Recycling?
Step 1: Run a Waste Audit
The first step in starting a stadium recycling program is running a waste audit. The goal is to identify the most common items in your waste stream and evaluate your current waste disposal methods. In most stadiums, the waste stream looks something like this:
Plastic bottles
Aluminum cans
Glass
Paper
Cardboard
Food waste
General waste
Step 2: Set Initial Aims
The next step is to set some achievable yet measurable aims. For example, having a waste segregation system to enable better recycling or separating food waste from general waste and mixing it with green waste to be composted.
Step 3: Improve Over Time
Lastly, put the plan into action and try to improve over time. However great your plan may be, there are always some areas that can use improvement, and the best way to identify those areas is by observing and adjusting the program over time.
How to Run a Successful Stadium Recycling Program?
While we see stadiums as a whole, it’s important to realize that facilities like these have several distinct areas like parking lots and concessionaires. Each of these areas poses a specific challenge, which must be addressed separately.
Parking Lots
Recycling outside of the stadiums is almost as important as doing so inside. That is especially important since tailgating is popular, which generates a large volume of recyclable and compostable materials. While you can place recycling bins alongside the regular trash bin, using a permanent or semi-permanent bin has the potential to become damaged. This issue can also be addressed by passing out collection bags to the stadium attendees and asking them to collect their recyclables and leave the bags in the parking lot on their way out.
Doors
The first contact point between the attendees and the venue is the gate. Since many stadiums prohibit outside food and beverages, placing recycling containers to collect recyclables like plastic bottles can be highly effective. Putting prominent and easily-visible signs on the bins can smoothen the process and educate people on the go.
Concessionaries
Concessionaries are some of the most crowded places and generate a big part of potential recyclable and compostable materials. Since most stadiums do not allow people to bring outside food or beverages, concessionaries control most of the generated trash and can be a key partners in facilitating stadium recycling.
One of the most widely-used and widely-disposed materials by concessionaires is cardboard. Most concessionaires discard tons of corrugated cardboard, which can be easily recycled. Concessionaires can take measures to implement stadium recycling by using recyclable materials and packaging that cuts down on waste.
Seating Area
The stadium seating areas are a gold mine for potential recyclables and compostables. People love to eat and drink while watching the game and they generally leave the containers and packaging in the seating area. A post-event cleanup throughout the seating area is labor-intensive and time-consuming, but it’s the best way to collect recyclables.
Hallways, Rest Rooms, and Other Public Areas
While the seating area may sound like a great spot to place a recycling bin, it’s generally not a good idea, considering the limited space. Therefore, public areas like hallways and restrooms are a much better place for recycling bins. Even though most stadiums have an adequate number of trash cans, they may not be positioned correctly (in high-traffic areas). If it’s a choice between looking for a recycling container and using a trash can, most people will choose the trash cans, so facilities should consider placement very carefully in order to optimize recycling efforts.
Do you know that most recyclables never get recycled? In the United States, nearly 75 percent of the waste can be recycled, but EPA reports that only about 32 percent of recyclables actually get recycled. This is while people are trying to be more eco-friendly and lead a sustainable lifestyle. The reason behind this huge gap is that people are not entirely sure about what should be recycled and end up wishcycling —recycling based on assumptions.
A great to resolve this issue is by utilizing waste management technology. Smart waste management uses AI and robotics to sort and manage waste with more efficiency and reduces human error. These technologies can help us reach our zero waste goals faster and make this world a better place.
In this article, we will discuss what smart waste management is and the tech innovations that are revolutionizing waste management.
What is Smart Waste Management?
Smart waste management is a modern approach to using technology and data to create a more efficient way to collect and manage waste. Looking at the current situation of the world, the amount of waste production is increasing with population growth. The regular methods of waste collection are inefficient and costly. Smart waste management is a more efficient and cost-effective way to manage trash, help with recycling, and reduce the negative impact of waste on the environment.
How Does Smart Waste Management Work?
Smart waste management systems are generally based on IoT (Internet of Things) technology. The system generally uses sensors to monitor the waste and store data in a central server. The sensors sort and categorize the waste into certain categories and the data is processed and turned into insights that can eventually help companies improve waste management.
Technologies Revolutionizing the Waste Management Process
Waste Level Sensors
The waste collection process that has been going on around the world for many decades isn’t as efficient as before. Today’s increased global population is generating more and more waste every day. There is no way to know when to empty the trash bins. When we don’t have enough information about the bin’s fullness, we can’t change the trash bags at the right time and maintain hygiene.
Waste level sensors tell the collectors where and which trash bin is full. This makes it easier for them to evaluate the timing and bin fullness and eventually maintain hygiene in high-traffic areas.
AI Recycling Robots
A lot of people don’t know what should and shouldn’t be recycled plus recycling rules and regulations are different in different places. When we mix items that should go into different bins, it gets contaminated. For example, a lot of people mix compostables and recyclables. However, if you put a compostable item like coffee grounds into the recycling bin, the whole batch gets contaminated and usually ends up in a landfill.
Many recycling facilities use recycling robots that use artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and separate recyclable from non-recyclable trash. It is an efficient way to sort waste and reduce time and labor costs. One company, AMP Robotics, designed a three-arm robot that can analyze and sort 80 items of waste per minute. This is about twice as fast as human sorters, which makes a significantly more efficient recycling process.
Garbage-truck Load Monitoring
The garbage collection process through trucks causes more and more issues every day. Trucks not only contribute to greenhouse gas emissions but also contribute to increased traffic in residential areas.
Putting weighing sensors in the garbage trucks can help predict fill levels and eventually reduce collection trips. Over time, the data can be used to save costs by planning better routes for the trucks.
E-Waste Kiosks
Do you know that electronic waste represents only 2 percent of the trash in American landfills and yet it’s responsible for 70 percent of the toxic waste?
Electric waste management can be quite tricky. Gadgets like smartphones, batteries, and tablets contain hazardous materials like mercury, lead, and arsenic which are hazardous to both humans and the environment.
To address this issue, many companies have started an e-waste program where they accept and even reimburse users for their old devices. Even a recycling company called ecoATM started an e-waste kiosk line that collects and values old electronics and pays the users cash on the spot. The kiosks use smart technology to determine what condition the device is in and the best way to dispose of it
Solar-powered Trash Compactors
Our trash is composed of things of all sizes and colors and we don’t usually think about how much space it takes. A great way to reduce greenhouse emissions from the garbage truck is to reduce the size of your trash and how frequently it is collected. A solar-powered trash compactor is a solution to this problem. It can hold much more trash than a traditional bin and uses solar power instead of other fuel sources like fossil fuel.
Smart Waste Bins
Most technologies are managing waste after it has been disposed of. However, the best way to dispose of and sort waste is at the point of disposal. Improper waste management at the point of disposal is one of the biggest threats to recycling. It contaminates the waste and often the entire batch goes into the landfill.
Smart waste bins like TrashBot solve this issue by automatically sorting waste as soon as it is thrown into the bin. It sorts the waste using AI, computer vision, and robotics with up to 300% more accuracy.
How does TrashBot revolutionize waste management?
Waste sorting at the point of disposal.
Cost-efficient recycling.
User recycling education via a large built-in screen and content management system.
When you grab a bite on your way home, do you ever pay attention to what you throw away? In today’s fast-paced world, we rarely stop and think about everything we’re throwing away. Statistics show that most of the trash that companies pay to throw away into landfills can be recycled or reused.
Waste audits are expensive and if they make you think whether they’re a waste of money, then you’re not alone. Waste audits look expensive but in the long run, they can help you save a lot of money and resources. It’s a potential revenue-making and savings opportunity that businesses often overlook.
In this article, we will discuss why you need a waste audit, the benefits of a waste audit, and how a waste audit helps companies save money and reach the ultimate zero waste goal.
What Exactly is a Waste Audit?
A waste audit is a process of determining the amount and types of waste produced by a large facility. It uncovers inefficient waste management practices and helps companies reach the zero waste goal by minimizing waste that goes into the landfills via reusing and recycling.
Why Do We Need a Waste Audit?
A study on commercial building waste showed that the waste from most buildings ended up in landfills instead of a recycling or compostable organic stream. An astonishing 62% of waste thrown away is recyclable or reusable. The remaining 38% consists of residuals – material that cannot be recycled or reused.
Here’s what a general waste stream of a commercial building looks like:
36% Organics
14% Glass/Metal/Plastic
10% Paper
1% Cardboard
< 1% Electronic Waste
While a general waste stream looks like that, the waste stream of your company will be a little different. Waste audits help you get customized and accurate data about your company’s waste stream and find ways to optimize it.
Waste Audits are just a snapshot of the problem. Multiple factors can change the results of a waste audit. For example, what time of year are you conducting the audit? If it’s winter, then you’re likely to find lots of coffee (and other warm drink) paper and bio-compostable cups. While in summer, you’ll see a lot of water and juice bottles.
Finally, waste audits are generally all-encompassing but, large facilities tend to have vastly different diversion rates across different zones due to concessionaires. This makes generalizations inaccurate and you end up with erroneous results. In large facilities like airports, stadiums, and hospitals, waste audits can be especially helpful due to the transient nature of visitors.
Benefits of Waste Audit
A waste audit allows organizations to find value in what they are about to throw away. There are multiple benefits to a waste audit, but here are the top four ways that a waste audit can help your organization.
Reduce Money Spent on Waste Management
Due to inefficient waste management practices, companies spend a lot of money throwing away waste that can be reused or recycled. Once you’ve found the areas for improvement, it’s just a matter of taking the right actions to improve your waste management practices.
Make Data-driven Decisions
By conducting a waste audit, you can start working with data instead of guessing.For example, if the audit results show that recyclables are ending up in the trash, then you can work on refining the recycling program and promoting recycling education.
Save Money
You can save money via a waste audit by unlocking the potential within your trash. By reducing what ends up in landfills, you’re not just saving the environment but also reducing the waste hauling fee, and the recyclables may have value on the market.
Measure Success
You cannot improve without measuring success. A waste audit helps you set up a benchmark and baseline every year. That way, you can measure the effectiveness of your recycling programs and set new targets.
Meet Certification Standards
By conducting waste audits, you can meet the requirements for certification standards such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). You can also use the data from the waste audit to fulfill requirements for regulatory compliance and reporting purposes such as CSR (corporate social responsibility) or GRI (global reporting initiative).
How Waste Audit Saves Money
Do you know how much waste one person produces per day? According to EPA, 4.9 pounds. In total, about 292.4 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) were generated in 2018. Out of the 292.4 million tons of MSW, only 69 million were recycled and 25 million were composted. An extra 17.7 million tons of food were managed by other methods and the rest went right into the landfills.
Waste audits help companies save money and resources by finding opportunities within the waste stream. Generally, we throw away items without realizing their full potential and end up contributing more and more to the landfills. By looking into the waste audit data, you can find potential savings and revenue-making opportunities. You may also be able to cut down on the waste hauling fees and find value for your recyclables and reusable items in the market.
Here are a few ways that a waste audit helped companies save money:
Uncover potential revenue streams.
Find potential savings opportunities
Reduce waste hauling costs
Reusing and recycling items instead of buying new
Cut down on unnecessary waste items
Zero Waste – The Ultimate Goal behind Waste Audits
Ultimately, it all comes down to one thing – the zero waste goal. It refers to the conservation of all resources by efficiently managing production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of all materials. Companies like Microsoft and Google are pursuing the zero waste goal to make the world a better place for generations to come.
We discussed how a waste audit, in itself, is expensive, but the value it brings to the business is long-lasting. However, the value it brings to the planet by reducing the amount of trash that goes into the landfills is even more important. About 91 percent of plastic is never recycled and it takes anywhere from decades to centuries to break down in oceans or landfills. Plastic bags take about 20 years to decompose and bottles take about 450 years.
By reducing the amount of waste a company is producing, you can find ways to reuse the product or recycle it. That way, fewer items end up in the landfills and you can lead a more environmentally-conscious lifestyle.
The Problem with Traditional Waste Audits
The problem with traditional waste audits is that it’s a time-consuming process and the audit data is generic and lacks critical details. Each step requires considerable time, resources, and planning. You assemble a team, set a date, determine waste categories, gather tools, sort the trash, and analyze the results. However, completing a waste audit means asking the next question of how to measure and validate success. Since waste audits are long and expensive, you can’t go about having those very often.
Technology is changing the world for the better and conducting a traditional waste audit means actually digging through the trash, which doesn’t give you real-time data. For efficient waste management, you need audits that can give you real-time data within minutes and that’s where TrashBot comes in.
TrashBot is a smart recycling bin that sorts waste up to 300% more accurately than humans. With TrashBot, all that goes into each one of your bins are at your disposal all the time. Using a unique analytics platform, you can select which TrashBots’ data you’d like to view and see user deposit minutes. The data is updated every fifteen minutes. There’s no need to speculate anymore, as the data tells you the full story, whenever you want.
Over the last two decades, artificial intelligence has remained a leading technology trend. In nearly all major industries from healthcare to advertising, AI is revolutionizing the world and making it a better place. We encounter AI every day, in small everyday objects like Roomba to avoid obstacles to bigger use cases such as medical imaging and diagnosis. Another industry where AI can do wonders is waste management.
According to the World Bank, annual waste management is expected to rise by 73% to about 3.88 billion tonnes from 2020 to 2050.
In 2022, waste management is no longer an issue of tomorrow. Climate change is impacting the world at a rapid pace and the best way we can bring change is through optimal waste management. To build a sustainable future for ourselves and our coming generations, it’s vital to manage waste efficiently. However, effective waste management is highly dependent on how much people know about waste management and are willing to put in an effort.
In this article, we will discuss how AI is revolutionizing waste management via technologies such as MRF (material recovery facility) and smart bins.
AI in Waste Management
We hear about exciting technologies like self-driving cars and facial recognition, but there’s more to AI than that. Waste management in most countries is a manual process. Even in developed countries, at least part of the waste management process is manual.
We are producing more and more waste every year. According to the EPA, the amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2018 was 292.4 million tons, which is almost 23.7 million tons more than the amount generated in 2017.
AI is changing the very way we collect, transport, and sort all types of waste from medical waste to biohazard waste. Robotics coupled with AI and machine learning have improves the quality of waste management process as it becomes more and more complex, and the health conditions for workers.
There are two ways we are using AI in waste management, smart recycling bins and material recovery facility (MRF). We will discuss each approach in detail below.
Smart Recycling Bins
A smart recycling bin monitors and sorts waste at the time of disposal. It uses AI (artificial intelligence), computer vision, robotics, and machine learning to efficiently and accurately sort waste.
The advantage of using a smart bin is that it sports garbage immediately after disposal which leads to minimal or no contamination. It’s designed mainly for places where people dispose of waste without a second thought. That includes commercial buildings, hospitals, stadiums, airports, and high-traffic areas.
How Smart Recycling Bins Work
Here’s how an AI waste management system generally works:
Garbage is disposed into the bins which are scanned via cameras and the information is sent to the servers.
The system uses AI and computer vision to sort waste into various categories.
With the help of robotic automation, the waste is put into its respective bin.
Whenever the bin is full, it sends a notification to the user that it’s ready to be emptied.
Material Recovery Facility
A material recovery facility (MRF) is a plant where single-stream recycling materials are separated and prepared to be sold to end-users. The facility sports a wide array of recyclables including but not limited to plastics, paper, cardboard (OCC), metal, glass, etc.
There are two primary types of material recovery facility, clean and dirty. In a clean MRF, only residential or commercial single-stream recyclables are processed while in a dirty MRF, residential or commercial trash is processed in the hopes of capturing recyclables that have incorrectly been thrown away with the regular trash.
How Material Recovery Facilities Work
Here’s how a material recovery facility work:
Collection trucks carry waste and drop it off to a facility.
Materials are moved to a pre-sorting station via conveyer belts. There, the non-recyclable items, hazardous materials, and contaminants like plastic bags are removed and sent to a landfill or incinerator.
Remaining items continue moving forward on the conveyer belt. On the way, cardboards are separated from smaller items like jars and paper.
Papers are separated via blowing air and are manually processed along with cardboard.
Metals are separated via electromagnets and eddy current separators from plastics and glass.
Glasses are crushed into cullets for easier transportation.
Infrared technology is used to separate plastic by polymer types and sent it to landfills or incinerators.
The separated materials are sent to the facility’s shipping dock to be sold to manufacturers.
Smart Bin Systems Vs. Material Recovery Facility
While the goal of both smart bins and MRFs is to reduce waste that goes into landfills and improve reusability, each approach has certain advantages over the other. We will outline some of the main differences in the table below.
Smart Recycling Bins
Material Recovery Facility
Speed
Waste is sorted as soon as it is dumpled.
Single-stream recycling materials from the curbside recycling bins are collected and resorted.
Accuracy
Uses AI and computer vision, which means up to 97% accuracy.
High accuracy rates due to the use of AI and ML.
Human Intervention
Almost no human intervention from the very beginning.
Sorts and processes materials recycled by humans leaving room for human error.
Garbage Collection frequency
Bins send a notification once they are full and are ready to be emptied.
Garbage is collected regularly from the curbside.
Ease of Use
Very easy to use and perfect solution for busy areas.
Materials are collected from recycling bins and sent to the facility.
The major reason why smart recycling bins are more effective compared to MRFs is the lack of human intervention. Humans, despite their best intentions often become the biggest barriers to recycling. Due to a gap in recycling education, people often throw away oily and greasy containers into the recycling bins. Not only are those non-recyclables, but they also end up contaminating the rest of the garbage in the bin. Smart bins eliminate the need by overtaking garbage sorting at the very time of disposal. This makes waste management faster, more accurate, and effective.
How to Get Started with AI Waste Management
We often hear about AI (artificial intelligence) and robotics in modern technology and how it’s changing the world for the better. Waste management is another area where AI and robotics are trying to make the world a better place. With AI recycling bins such as TrashBot, you can start your struggle against global warming and climate change. TrashBot is an excellent solution for businesses where everyone is busy and cannot sort the garbage upon disposal. It uses AI and computer vision to sort and separate materials upon disposal with up to 95% accuracy.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, 11 billion tons of waste are produced worldwide. About 91% of plastic is not recycled, and only 20% of what goes into our recycling bins ends up being recycled. Poor waste management leads to air and water pollution, soil contamination, and the mass effect of climate change.
With this in mind, major corporations such as Google, and Uniliver are committing to a zero-waste goal. Microsoft announced that they have committed to achieving zero waste goals by 2030. Despite their best intentions, humans are still confused about how and what to recycle.
In this article, we will explore what a waste audit is and why your organization should conduct one, as well as the technology that can make waste management a more efficient system.
Waste Audit: What it is and How it Works
A waste audit is a method of analyzing a facility’s regular waste stream. It can help organizations reduce waste, determine whether they have adequate waste management strategies, and identify ways to improve the process.
In August 2021, the most extensive study on commercial building waste across the United States. They conducted waste audits at more than 100 buildings and analyzed 170,000 pounds of waste during the study. The findings showed that commercial buildings generally throw away 62% of the recyclable trash, and only 38% are residuals that cannot be recycled or composted.
As per the waste audit, here’s what a general trash stream looks like:
36% organics
14% glass, metals, and plastic
10% paper
1% cardboard
Less than 1% of electronic waste
Conducting a Waste Audit: Step-by-Step
Conducting a waste audit is usually a five-step process. Each step requires substantial planning, resources, and time. The five steps to conduct a waste audit are:
Assembling a team and setting a date
Determining waste categories
Gathering tools required for the audit
Sorting through the trash
Analyzing the final results
The Problems with Traditional Waste Audit
A waste audit allows organizations to find value in what they are about to throw away. There are multiple benefits to a waste audit, but here are the top four ways a waste audit can help your organization:
When it comes to your waste trail, no one pays attention to what they throw away. Even though waste data does not seem attractive, it holds the key to impact change. Can you remember the last thing you threw in the trash?
Unfortunately, traditional waste audit data is general and high-level, and it often lacks critical details that can help your organization bring about change. That is why it’s often unable to help organizations devise their procurement or purchasing strategies.
An automated solution to waste audits: Autonomous systems such as TrashBot are accurate data sources for waste audits, helping to optimize the waste management process while improving over time through machine learning. We are talking about a smart recycling bin that uses artificial intelligence and the cloud, becoming smarter as time passes. With efficient waste audit data and insights, this solution will help you save money and efficiently manage waste throughout your organization.
AI and Robotics for Waste Management Solutions
When it comes to waste management, you might think that a human being can make better decisions. However, a survey revealed that 62% of respondents agreed that a lack of recycling education is causing them to recycle incorrectly. In addition, other factors such as the evolving recycling laws per region make it hard for the user to keep up with what is recyclable or compostable in which part of the world.
Recycling Smart Bins are the solution for organizations that want to pursue a zero-waste goal but are facing obstacles along the way.
CleanRobotics developed an autonomous system that leverages AI, computer vision, and robotics to detect and separate recyclables from landfill units. Here is how TrashBot can revolutionize waste management:
TrashBot is designed to make an environmental impact by separating waste items at the time of disposal. It’s an excellent solution for high-traffic areas where people dispose of things without a second thought.
It offers organizations an alternative way to conduct lengthy, labor-intensive, and costly waste audits. They can instantly get on-demand, exportable waste audits and use the data for decision insights.
To make the job easier for custodial operations, TrashBot updates the fullness status in real-time.
TrashBot also comes equipped with a built-in screen and content management system. This system allows you to educate the public about recycling as well as communicate your organization’s sustainability goals.
Not only is the Trashbot 3x more accurate than humans, but it also keeps improving over time. The recycling AI captures high-quality data, and the users can get on-demand, exportable waste audits at their disposal.
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The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
