Mobile Waste - municipal waste collection

Motivate citizens to sort their waste. Our MOBILE WASTE app allows you to easily manage the collection of any type of waste (paper, plastic, metal, etc.), printing labels on bags and collecting in the field or at the collection point using portable terminals. The application clearly shows how many points citizens have collected by collecting sorted waste and it is also possible to set up a conversion relationship between the points collected and a possible discount for municipal waste collection.

The need to identify

In order to be able to introduce a personal incentive for citizens, it is essential to clearly identify both the participants (household) and the different types of waste (paper, glass, plastic, ...). There are a number of ways of identification, from simple colour differentiation of the collection containers, to marking with a barcode or 2D code, to RFID chips. When comparing the costs and benefits in conjunction with the speed and, most importantly, the accuracy of identification, we concluded that the most suitable method of marking is the classic barcode or 2D code. The availability and price of the supported devices - CipherLab CPT-800x, CPT-8200 or Android devices - clearly speak for it.

How does it work?

The principle is to assign a unique number to a subscriber (household) and print this number in the form of a barcode or 2D code on the labels. The participant receives the appropriate number of labels with the code and, if applicable, containers (bags) for the sorted waste, sorted collects the waste in the sacks received, marks the filled sacks at the defined collection time by sticking the code labels and prepares them for collection. The operator of the collection vehicle is equipped with a portable terminal for scanning the barcode/2D codes and scans them from the loaded bags with the respective waste. This is how the whole collection takes place, after which the operator hands over the terminal and the scanned data is transferred from the terminal to the system for further processing.

What is needed?

The municipality will purchase CODEWARE's MOBILE WASTE software to be installed on a computer and a portable data terminal to be loaned to the collection truck crews. Self-adhesive barcode/2D code labels can be printed on a regular laser printer, or the municipality can purchase a printer to print waterproof labels (from the so-called "water-resistant" laser printer). The code labels must be affixed visibly. Once the collection is complete, the reader is placed in the charging and communication stand, and the collected data is transferred to a computer where it is processed and archived. The MOBILE WASTE programme allows to change the number of points per commodity and the price per point according to the evolution of payments from downstream purchasing organisations (e.g. EKO-KOM). At any time, it is possible to extend the codebook with additional commodities or to modify the error codebook for reasons that make it impossible to award full bonus points to a household. Of course, it is convenient to edit individual taxpayers in the database and back up the data.

Practical example:

The better citizens sort their municipal solid waste, the less they will pay for mixed waste collection. But how to get them to sort at home?

In the village of Chelčice in the Strakonice region, they have introduced bag collection of sorted waste using barcodes and are satisfied. "We started bagging sorted waste from home in 2008 and in the second quarter of this year we introduced the barcode system. Currently, the municipality neither subsidises nor makes money from this system. However, what we have achieved is that we have not had to increase the prices for bin collections this year, the proportion of unsorted waste has decreased and the payments from EKO-KOM have more than doubled. The financial incentive to sort waste has aroused quite a lot of interest among citizens. In the first quarter of this year, more than half of the taxpayers signed up for the system," says Miroslav Dušek, deputy mayor of Chelčice. The bags must be well tied and the barcode labels must be visibly affixed. The part in the system of bagged sorted waste collection with barcode identification is voluntary. The taxpayer is issued free self-adhesive labels for each collection commodity after registration. The label contains a barcode with information on the commodity, the serial number of the label and identifies the taxpayer by means of a generated code. Under this code, collection information is presented on the municipality's website. For each properly filled bag, the taxpayer is awarded bonus points for which they receive a certain amount of money. The amount thus accumulated is deducted from the taxpayer's lump sum payment for the collection of the bins in the following collection period. For example, the value of one point may be CZK 5. "The entire collection agenda is handled by CODEWARE's MOBILE WASTE program," concludes Miroslav Dušek,

The full article "Barcode sorting motivates citizens" about the waste collection system in Chelčičy was published in the magazine Moderní obec (October 2009).