Contamination Armando Ortega knows most residents want to do the right thing when they set out the trash and recycling each week. Ortega is the customer experience manager for GFL Environmental in Houston, Texas, a residential and commercial waste management service. “If you don’t work in our industry, [trash] is just something that’s not on your mind,” Ortega said at the Summit. “What do you do with paint? What do you do with oil? What do you do with sheet rock and those types of things?” Residents aren’t always sure how to dispose of those items, he added. It’s understandable, then, why contamination continues to vex waste and recycling haulers. Fortunately, data can support enforcement by helping to modify resident behavior and simplify collection.
Resident communication cannot be underestimated. Helping modify household behavior to improve sorting and collection compliance is a core imperative of any effective waste and recycling management program. Yet traditional, paper-based communication strategies – mailed postcards and calendars, for example – often fall short in an online world. Data-based communication tools provide the immediacy, relevance, and convenience that fleet operators require today. Routeware has taken the lead in this area with its ReCollect communication tools. ReCollect simplifies community engagement with real-time service updates, collection reminders, and education resources that help keep residents informed, connected, and involved.
AI-enabled cameras are trained to recognize non-recyclable contaminants in a food waste or recycling hopper in the week’s trash.
“If we can tie contamination events to those [specific] individuals,” WasteVision AI’s Lamb said, “and then you can get that data, and … communicate with your residents, both fielding inbound and going outbound, I think you have something very, very powerful there.”
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