Problem

Waste recycling is a big issue in urban environments. Currently, most garbage separation uses only two categories: organic and recyclable. This helps in the sense that it separates what is recyclable and what is not, but is not enough to be able to recycle the garbage. Every material has a process to be recycled. For instance, glass, if not broken, could be easily reused, when paper needs to be processed to produce brand new paper.

This and other problems causes only 2,1% of recyclable trash in Brazil to be recycled, a much lower number than other countries such as Japan that recycles about 80% of its plastic. One of the main difference between here and other countries is the waste classification. Here the trash needs to be classified again after it is thrown (among plastic, metal, paper and others), so manual labor is required, which is susceptible to human errors and is not scalable enough to the amount of waste produced in Brazil.

This classification is most important in the places that most produce waste. These are usually places with a lot of movement. Some of examples are shopping centers, markets, parks, universities, among others.

Solution

Here we propose a solution for the garbage classification problem to the university environment. Every place has its own specialties and the solution can take advantage of that in many ways. By specifying a place, we can define the requirements and restrictions focusing on the trash produced in that environment and its available infrastructure.

The solution proposed is a Smart Recycler. A trash bin that separates waste in 4 main categories and 6 sub categories:

• Metal
  • Soda cans
• Paper
  • Juice boxes
  • Crumpled paper
• Plastic
  • Plastic bottles
  • Plastic cups
  • Chip bags
• Others

It uses sensors and image processing to determine what type of waste was disposed and put it in the respective container. The Smart Recycler communicates with a server via Wi-Fi, this server classifies the waste in the image sent and returns the material and the QR Code necessary information, which is shown to the user. This QR Code can be redeemed by the user to get credits.

Hardware Block Diagram

The user can access its Smart Recycler account to:

• Check credit balance.
• Visualize statistics about the Smart Recyclers.
• Visualize the amount of waste that was segregated.

The Smart Recycler is powered by battery. It requires internet connection to be able to run the image processing.