When I moved from Boulder, Colorado to Detroit, Michigan, I was in for quite the culture shock. Yet, one issue that I've taken a particular interest in includes the difference in approach to the waste management and environmental sectors between the two cities.
Coincidentally, I recently stumbled upon an article that showed how a Polish company, Bine, is currently working towards efficient municipal waste disposal streams through utilizing IoT. Bine has created the E-Bin, a fully automated garbage bin that is capable of sorting and condensing waste, as well as uploading the bin's data to the cloud for waste disposable companies to analyze. According to Bine, "waste only has to be collected when storage is full, saving time and labor costs. While a working pilot version is almost ready, office and other contextual bins will be available in 2018, with Bine predicting that a switch to its bins could improve recycling rates for businesses up to 80-percent."
This may only be the first step towards an entire reformation of waste-management. Bine is focusing primarily on B2B targets. Yet, imagine if this concept were to be implemented at a citywide, or even statewide level; government spending money would be generated out of thin air. On top of savings from time and labor costs, the majority of waste that people dispose of has market value. A new DEQ-funded university and business study found that in Michigan alone, garbage contains "an estimated $368 million worth of recyclable material. The largest chunk, 13.6 percent, is food waste that could be converted to energy through composting or anaerobic digestion." This could also be an amazing opportunity for brands to lead by example through getting involved with a data-savvy, green initiative like this one.
Moreover, this financial incentive could be a great opportunity for cities who have been struggling to find the budget for green initiatives. In 2005, Boulder County made a commitment to doing everything in their power to reach their city's goal of generating "Zero Waste" by 2025. As a result, you can't walk more than 100 feet without seeing a recycling or compost bin. In Detroit, however, nobody composts (most people don't even understand what composting means), and it's largely due to the fact that it hasn't been promoted at an institutional level. In the mid 1980's, Detroit built the largest municipal incinerator in the world, of which required continuous financial obligation from the government. Not only did this release a plethora of harmful toxins into the air, but it eliminated any recycling or compost facilities to capture any of the waste stream (until recent implementation of curbside recycling programs in 2009). As of 2017, there are 11 composting facilities near Detroit, yet are all under-financed and have limited or no curbside programs. Yes, the city of Detroit played a massive role in the industrial revolution and in the American civil rights movement. Yet, a declining economic climate and crime in the late 80's and 90's, particularly gang violence and arson, has damaged the city's reputation (as amplified by media). The implementation of IoT within the public sector could help rebrand Detroit, turning the rugged, prideful, yet largely misunderstood city into a group of financially savvy pioneers amongst the new era of automation. Hopefully, this could provoke enough buzz for the city to reach a big jumping-off point, as Detroit has already started to see an expanding presence of national and local venture capital firms, as well as a 50% increase in start-ups in the last 3 years.
If such a program, hypothetically, were to be implemented at a citywide level, it is likely that the citizens of Detroit would react positively. Aside from the fact that a program like this would require zero additional effort from E-bin users, it would also likely promote positive spillover. A recent study (Carrico et al., 2014) on positive and negative spillover on environmental behavior suggests "the likelihood of performing one behavior is positively related to the likelihood of performing other behaviors in that cluster, as well as correlations between clusters of PEBs and between PEBs and policy support (Tobler et al., 2012)." Other studies have shown that recycling has a positive correlation with energy conservation, composting, and reuse of disposable bags (Berger, 1997). From these concepts, it can be inferred that if the people who don't normally recycle or compost have the opportunity to do so at no additional "cost" (no trash cans are free), then they are more likely to start participating in other environmentally sound activities, ultimately resulting in a cleaner, greener Detroit.
To me, the implementation of IoT in the waste management sector is inevitable. As automation starts to pave the way to the future of many consumer journeys, it will transform all public sectors, which may include the detachment of any stigma associated with environmental initiatives in this particular scenario. Hence, "green automation" in this case would not only be considered as an example of social responsibility, but as an example of frugality, or standard business practices.