The city of Mölndal has long been at the forefront of waste sorting from single-family households and is now focusing on the next major waste stream, which is from residents in multi-family households. The project involves measuring waste streams from some twenty recycling room where data is stored in real time via digital sensors installed in the bins.
"We see that the residual waste quantities from our tenants are significantly higher than they could be in comparison with other property owners. With the help of sensors in the bins, we can optimize our recycling room at the same time as we see the effect of the measures we take to increase source separation among our tenants", says Charlotta Brolin, Sustainability Strategist at Mölndalsbostäder.
"Recycling room are often wrongly dimensioned and not sufficiently adapted to the current need. For example, when the bins for plastic and paper packaging overflow, it can easily end up in combustible residual waste and be burned unnecessarily," says Michael Wictor, CEO of Bintel.
Among the first in the world
This project is among the very first of its kind in the world. The information gathered will provide knowledge on how the different environmental spaces are adapted to the waste flows that exist today. By studying how well the sorting of Food waste and packaging works at the different environmental facilities involved in the test, the city of Mölndal can then, in dialogue with property owners, find good solutions for different Recycling room.
The aim is to create a "best practice" for waste management of Recycling room in Mölndal with the goal of reducing costs, reducing residual waste and increasing the satisfaction related to waste sorting among the residents of multi-family houses. Similar installations at other companies have shown environmental benefits where they actively worked data-driven with their Recycling room.
Extension with the aim of learning more
A small test was carried out in 2021, measuring the waste streams from three different Recycling room at Mölndalsbostäder in cooperation with Bintel and the City of Mölndal. To learn more from the data collection, they are now expanding the test to around twenty Recycling room. The project will run for two years, after which an evaluation will take place.
"Using digitisation to understand Waste volume (or weight) is very interesting. We will usedata that will allow us to see the affects that contributes to the the amount of combustible residual waste and how we can influence residents, property companies and even ourselves. Thus reduce the amount of Residual waste and at the same time increase the separation ofFood waste and packaging. This would overall result in a cheaper waste management in the future and thatd is a win-win situation compared to continuing as we are today," says Andreas Svendsen, environmental strategist at the Technical Administration.
