Cloud-based Smart IoT Sustainable Solution for Waste Sorting and Management

A neat and clean surrounding is the main driving force for any city to be called a smart city. By 2050, it is expected that 66% of the world population will live in cities. The growing volumes of wastes are largely caused by urbanization and industry growth. The residents of a city can have a direct impact in the waste management efforts by the approach that they take towards sorting their waste. Therefore, a system that can observe the sorting behavior of each resident and provide a motivating force towards proper sorting can be essential in shaping one aspect of the sustainability culture in a city. To achieve this goal, we proposed and developed an IoT based solution that can observe and score the sorting behavior of a user based on the items thrown into a particular dustbin. Additionally, this system can also record the temperature, humidity, pressure, and air quality inside the dustbin, as well as fill level of the bin to inform the users when the bin needs to be emptied. The proposed system uses solar panels as its main source of power and does not store any personal information about the items that users throw into the dustbin. All data processing happens onboard inside the dustbin and only the results are sent over to the cloud database. The results from the deep learning models for trash classification are promising with accuracy up to 88%. Although there is still space for improvement, the proposed system shows promising results in terms of reliability and accuracy for a smart framework to promote sustainable behaviors among the society.