Smart City Waste Management

As cities work to cost-efficiently manage waste in public spaces, smart city waste management programs can help to improve efficiency, reduce costs and enhance the beauty of public areas.

Like other smart technologies used by cities to enhance city services, smart city waste management technology uses Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to provide public works crews with detailed information about trash and recycling bins throughout the city. The sensors can communicate when bins need to be emptied, when odor is becoming a problem, when bins have been tipped over, and even what the temperature is inside a bin. Armed with this intelligence, waste management crews can manage trash and recycling containers more efficiently to keep public areas clean and well-maintained.

The benefits of a smart waste management system include:

• Lower costs. By having crews only make trips to bins that need attention, rather than visiting every bin on a regular basis, cities can reduce the cost of labor and fuel.
• Less wear and tear. Fewer trips also allows cities to extend the life of waste management vehicles and other assets.
• Improved cleanliness in public areas. Smart city waste management technology allows crews to empty bins before they become overflowing with trash or recycling, and before infestation becomes an issue. Smart waste sensors can also alert crews when bins develop unpleasant smells which can then be treated to eliminate odors.
• Reduced congestion and carbon emissions. Trash and recycling collection vehicles typically make many stops during a route, adding to congestion problems on city streets. By enabling crews to make fewer trips, smart waste management technologies help minimize congestion and reduce the pollutants emitted by trash and recycling collection vehicles.
• More effective management. With detailed data about the status of bins throughout the city, public works departments can more easily manage the many vendors who are typically employed to handle different kinds of trash and recycling collection throughout the city.

How smart city waste management works

Smart city waste management programs use a number of technologies that are common to smart city initiatives.

• IoT sensors. Trash and recycling containers can be outfitted or produced with low-cost sensors that monitor everything from the amount and types of material in a container to temperature, odor and location of the bin.
• A high-performance network. Smart city waste management systems need powerful options for network connectivity that can connect sensors throughout the city and transmit the vast amount of data they produce in real time.
• A management platform. Waste management officials require platforms that provide visibility into and control over the thousands of bins throughout the city.
• Data analytics. Software that identifies, analyzes and interprets usage trends is critical to producing the kind of intelligence that waste management crews and city planners rely on.

Smart city waste management bins may also be outfitted with solar panels that provide power for trash and recycling compactors within a container, and some receptacles may have WiFi connectivity that enable real-time surveillance functions.

Network infrastructure for smart city waste management

Spectrum Enterprise provides an essential piece of smart city waste management technology: a network infrastructure that can easily handle all the data produced by smart waste management using IoT sensors, as well as data originating with other smart city technologies.

With more than 840,000 miles of fiber network infrastructure already in place, Spectrum will invest another $25 billion in additional capacity by 2021. This nationwide foundation of connectivity makes Spectrum an ideal and trusted partner for local governments throughout the country that are adopting smart technologies.

To provide the connectivity that powers smart waste management solutions, Spectrum Enterprise provides a two-way, fully interactive digital network that offers symmetrical connection speeds up to 100 Gbps for governments and enterprise clients. Because smart city waste management technologies often require connection diversity, Spectrum also offers wireless and cellular connections, with one of the nation’s largest LTE cellular networks and with thousands of WiFi hotspots that will soon enable wireless connections of 1 Gbps. Additionally, Spectrum offers gigabit connections to homes and businesses throughout its service area, supporting local governments as they adopt a wide range of smart city initiatives.

Learn more about Spectrum Smart Cities at www.spectrumsmartcities.com.