- The results of the project open up new opportunities to develop the collection from the eco-houses when the municipalities from the coming year will also be responsible for recycling materials from all households."Bintel's technology gives us new tools to continue our journey up the waste ladder by working with our customers to increase recycling and reduce combustible residual waste," summarizes Florim Albborn, CEO of SSAM.
"Smart waste bins" has been a collaboration between SSAM, the Green Tech company Bintel and Prezero within the framework of Växjö municipality's innovation project Diaccess, funded by the EU program UIA.
The program has been implemented in three stages. During the first part, 1,400 waste bins were connected via Wexnet's LORA network in Recycling room at multi-family houses and businesses in Växjö. They were fitted with Bintel level sensors to collect data, initially without changing the collection schedule. This was followed by six months of testing to optimize the existing routes by skipping emptying where possible and making structural changes to the environmental rooms. Finally, demand-driven emptying was tested based on data from each Recycling room. The objectives were to increase the fill rate of the bins and reduce the number of emptying operations.
- In this large pilot, which includes all food and residual waste bins emptied by a garbage truck, we have seen that the need for collection has decreased more than we expected. We have less "air in the system", says Per Gunnarsson, IT and digitalization manager at SSAM.
A success factor for the project has been the cooperation with the drivers at PreZero.
- We have received very valuable input from them and they are happy with how it works," Per Gunnarsson continues.
There are many stakeholders involved in the project and the fact that everyone has had access to the same data has been a unifying factor.
- Overall, it has been an extremely successful project from many perspectives. SSAM is a brave company that has dared to invest in innovation to drive its business forward. In this way, SSAM also gets a chance to be involved in setting requirements during the development," says Jennie Orton, COO at Bintel, whose AI technology has formed the basis for "Smart bins".
The common goal for all involved is to increase sorting and speed up the circular transition, thereby reducing waste incineration.
- The amount of waste is constantly increasing throughout Europe and the EU is tightening the requirements for
member states to speed up the circular transition. Increased separation of materials is a key to success. The project also goes hand in hand with the goals of the UN's 2030 Agenda, which many companies use to guide their sustainability efforts. Therefore, it is important that companies like SSAM dare to be at theforefront and test new opportunities to achieve their climate goals, perhaps even faster than planned, says Jenni. faster than planned," says Jennie Orton.
Being a pioneer means that others become curious about what you do, and Per Gunnarsson at SSAM has noticed that there is great interest from the industry.
- There has been a lot of learning in the project and we have been able to establish that it works on a large scale through automation with the help of AI. This bodes well for the future," concludes Per Gunnarsson.
