Smart Bins

Smarts Waste Bins come in variety of models which have different operations in them for example some
waste bins might just have the Fill-in Feature which notifies the municipality once the waste bin is full so
that they may come and remove the waste as soon as possible. For some others, the waste bin can be
specially optimized for community usage purposes and have ID tags presented in order for the bins to
collect the waste as this reduces the amount of waste being collected since unauthorized users will be
denied due to the lack of ID Cards. Another popular model is the Multipurpose Smart Bin which are
exclusive to cities worldwide as these bins will not only have the smart management of waste collecting
but also act as a Wi-Fi Hotspot and can also be used as public information booths which display crucial
information such as street names, important landmarks and also maps.

Smart Bins are widely beneficial to the public and surroundings compared to the traditional bins
because it can prevent bin overflow of waste and by the effective management of the waste using real
time technologies provided by the smart bins, the public can have clean bins ready for usage and also
the chances of stench will be low since the waste is removed on time. The smart bins also help in
keeping a green environment as well as effective management and utilization of the municipality as the
smart bins will give the shortest routes via in-built GPS to the sanitation engineers so this way this will
decrease the number of drivers and vehicles to the same area and also this will also decrease the fuel
consumption of the municipality since less number of vehicles are dispatched to the area and this will in
turn save a lot of money in fuel savings.

The Smart Bin consists of three essential parts which are: “Outdoor Nodes, Analytics and Workstation”
(Folianto, F., Low, Y. and Yeow, W, 2015).

These are the different sub-systems within the Smart Bin mainframe

The first part or Outdoor nodes has sensor nodes and gateway nodes in them. The sensory nodes’
primary objective is to know when the bin has reached its full capacity and also to examine the status of
the smart bin. The sensory nodes are powered by a battery and once a reading is detected, the sensory
nodes then transmit the data to the gateway node at a low frequency possibly a radio wave. The
gateway node serves the sensory node in the smart bin as it sends the data from the sensory node to
the analytics server via internet connection be it Wi-Fi, broadband or cellular.

The second part or Analytics Server will analyze the data forwarded by the outdoor nodes and then it
will first process whatever data is sent to the server and then it will compare against the regulations set
by the technicians and also performs evasive measures when the smart bin has reached full capacity.
The analytics server receives and gathers data, marks metadata and communicates with other external
systems.

The Last part or Workstation is part of bin system which receives the information from the analytical
server and then proceeds to provide with the users of the smart bin with useful information through a
GUI or a graphical user interface which they are familiar with. The GUI is designed in such a way that the
smart bin which is being examined will be in a form of an icon similarly of the ones in a computer and
will also show its location on a map in the operator terminal and will also display the present capacity of
the bin.

References

Plasticomnium.com. (2018). 100% Green made®. [online] Available at:

https://www.plasticomnium.com/env/middleeast/en/sustainable-development/100-green-made.html
[Accessed 4 Mar. 2018].

Folianto, F., Low, Y. and Yeow, W. (2015). Smartbin: Smart Waste Management System. In: IEEE Tenth
International Conference on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks and Information Processing (ISSNIP).
[online] Singapore: IEEE, p.2. Available at:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy1.hw.ac.uk/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=7106974 [Accessed 4
Mar. 2018].