Sydney City Council uses artificial intelligence to reduce pollution in curb bins.
Canterbury and Bankstown Waste Systems Coordinator Troy Leedham will outline how technology has revolutionized the way Congress improves resource recovery at an industry conference on the Gold Coast next week.
Reedham said the city council empties about 100,00 bins every other week, and getting residents to put their things in the correct bin has always been a challenge.
A recent audit suggests an average contamination rate of 30%, which represents a significant financial risk, Reedham said.
“Recycling loads brought into our contractors’ treatment facilities are deemed too polluting, rejected, and then subject to significantly increased disposal costs,” he told the conference. I’m here.
“It also impacts our waste diversion rate and our goal of increasing our recycling capacity and capacity.”
automation
So the city council decided to conduct an audit of the dumpster and use the results to design a community education program.
This meant sending staff out early in the morning to check bins and record book contamination. This process was not only cumbersome and inefficient, but also posed potential health risks to staff.
By automating the discovery process about 18 months ago, staff no longer need to leave their homes.
Our educators need to be there to educate the community. It’s not about wasting half a day lifting and running up and down the street.
troy reedham
“What we have done is put a camera on the truck and take a picture of what the camera throws into the truck when you pick up the bin, and run that picture on the AI. It’s trained to detect things that aren’t there: recycling,” Leedham said. government news.
“Then we have those results and can provide an education as to where the contamination is.
“Now we can inspect all of our bins, which is about 90,000 bins every two weeks instead of hundreds of bins a month.”
The data means Congress can tailor education programs according to the type of contamination occurring in a particular area, and staff may be freed up to do other things, Leedham said. .
“Our educators need to be there to educate their communities, not waste half a day lifting and running up and down the street.
“Now they can get that data more or less instantly and work on how to educate the population.”
Self-developed program
The Council hopes to continue refining and improving the internally developed system using Microsoft’s suite of AI and automation programs. This includes developing better ways to store and use the large amounts of data that is generated.
The database currently holds over 150,000 records, which the Council plans to move to a data warehouse for various future uses.
Other improvements assigned to the project include improving AI accuracy and introducing additional categories of pollution.
The council is also exploring other areas where artificial intelligence can be applied, Reedham said.
The idea of automating contamination detection was born as part of the Council’s $2.1 million technology-driven Closing the Loop on Waste program.
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