At least 30% of recycled waste is contaminated; either an item being placed into the wrong receptacle (type 1) or a correct item featuring an inappropriate amount of contamination (type 2). Contaminated recyclate often gets diverted to landfill or loses significant value in the recycling ecosystem.
Project goals
The project aims at developing new smart waste bin collection capabilities within:
- Identification and classification of waste.
- Appropriate sorting or recyclables.
- Tie the waste to its producer brands to support producers with extended insight how to recycle more of their products and reduce waste leakage from the ecosystem.
- Investigate and research consumer behaviours to further develop incentives to engage disposers in the waste collection activity.
The new technology will be introduced to the smart waste management segment of the global waste recycling market – both of which are well established. The new technology will cater the need for collection of uncontaminated and sorted waste materials, enabling a more cost efficient recycling process to further downstream and improve overall recycling targets.
Sustainable development goals
Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
This UN sustainable development goal links directly fostering innovation with building resilient infrastructure. By promoting proper recycling through an innovative technology, we can have the adequate infrastructure to recycle, and reuse disposed waste.
Sustainable Cities and Communities
This technology ensures that the infrastructure in the city is adequate for recycling, specifically target 11.6 aims at reducing the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to waste management.
Ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns
In its report on the sustainable development goals, the UN reports that 1 million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute, and 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are thrown away each year. This is an issue that the project Capture is directly trying to resolve: the correct sorting and processing of waste by the smart bins will ensure greater return of used materials back into production processes, driving a true circular economy.
Climate Action
The technology ensures use of virgin material is reduced and less GHG emissions produced, contributing to target 13b: promote mechanisms for raising capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management.
Life Below Water
he system diverts waste that typically ends up in the ocean - where 70% sinks to the bottom - to recycling facilities. Target 14.1 aims at reducing marine pollution of all kinds by 2025, goal that this project also contributes to.
Life on Land
The system diverts waste that typically causes land pollution to recycling facilities. Although target 15.5 was planned to be achieved in 2020, contributions can still be made to reduce degradation of natural habitats, in our case by promoting proper disposal of waste.
Where are the bins located?
There are bins placed outside and inside Norway. Within Norway, the pilot project is in Skien. In The United Arab Emirates, the bins are located in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Al Ain.
Current Progress
The primary goal of Work Package 1 was to gather information about user expectations, experiences, and behavior to provide key insight into specific user and location requirements for the final SmartBin to maximize its potential. USN’s research team has led the work on gathering the following:
- User demographics and waste disposal habits, including understanding user characteristics, behavior, and expectations.
- Ease of use/intuitiveness for SmartBin.
- Identification of marketing tools with potential to promote behavioral changes, in turn increasing adoption of the smart bin technology.
USN's research team has gathered and analyzed data from the following sources:
- Focus groups (se pictures above)
- Interviews with potential users in Abu Dhabi
- Literature review
- Survey on existing users
The next steps which will be carried out in spring 2024 is to test the effectiveness of the new SmartBins in laboratory and field experiments.
