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How information technology is making waste management more efficient and cost effective

The economic cost of rubbish has been something of a political football in the UK of late. Many local councils have faced public outrage after cutting down bin collections from weekly to fortnightly.

In September 2011, communities secretary Eric Pickles laid the blame with the former Labour government. “Their policies of bin taxes, bin fines and bin cuts hammered hard-working households and fuelled fly-tipping,” he said.

Pickles announced a £250 million government fund to subsidise weekly rubbish collection, although according to The Daily Telegraph, not without opposition from within the cabinet.

In July 2011, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) published an exhaustive report into the current state of waste management in the UK.

Perhaps surprisingly, the amount of waste the country produces is in decline. The weight of waste produced by homes and businesses fell from 180 million tonnes in 2006 to 165 million in 2008. Meanwhile, recycling has increased significantly, and the amount of rubbish that ends up in landfill has halved since 2000.

Nevertheless, waste presents an ongoing economic challenge. Everyone wants their rubbish to be disposed of, but no-one wants to pay for it themselves.

It is good news, therefore, that the waste management industry is turning to information technology in order to become more efficient.

The price of waste

SITA is a global waste management company whose services range from graffiti removal to industrial waste disposal, and which serves clients including local councils and private businesses. According to Jim Wilks, special projects manager at SITA UK, the waste management industry’s approach to disposal is evolving.

“Waste management is not just about hauling rubbish away any more,” he says. “It’s about finding the right destination for people’s discarded stuff, whether that is recycling, reuse or energy recovery.”

Although SITA says it is a company with a vision for “a society where there is no more waste”, it also has economic incentives for pursuing that utopian ideal. “In 2003, disposing of a tonne of waste cost about £5,” explains Wilks. “Now, it’s up to around £85 a tonne.”

A large chunk of that £85 comes from landfill tax. Established in 1996 by Conservative secretary of state for the environment John Gummer, it was the first environmental tax in the UK and was partly intended to incentivise organisations to pursue alternative forms of waste management. The tax will increase by £8 every year until 2014, when it will hit £80 per tonne, at which level it will remain until at least 2020.

SITA has applied a number of technologies to make waste management more efficient. Some of these measures address its own operating costs. For example, in the town of Warwick, SITA has analysed and optimised the collection routes of its refuse trucks, which Wilks says has reduced its fuel bills by around 12%. After the success of the Warwick pilot – which involved 12 vehicles – SITA is rolling the technology out to 650 vehicles across 32 sites.

SITA’s fleet also recently moved to a centralised model for fuel supply and management, using pumps and software from UK company Merridale. “We are now monitoring stock levels every 24 hours, and the Merridale system flags up any tank that reaches the re-order level,” the company has said of the deployment. “We then advise the depot manager that an order has been placed and provide the expected delivery date.” Like EcoTrak, the Merridale system is in pilot stage, with UK-wide roll-out under review.

Other efficiencies derive from improving communications between truck drivers and the depot. “Let’s say you’ve paid to have four bins lifted, but your gates are locked when we get there,” explains Wilks. “In the past, the driver would drive on and tell us he couldn’t get through the gates. You would phone us up and say, ‘Bloody SITA – you haven’t picked my bins up.’

“Now, however, the driver can record the fact that the gates are locked,” he says. “That info is sent back to the depot by 3G immediately. [The depot] can call the customer proactively and reorganise a pick-up that suits them.” This is both more efficient and a better customer experience, he says.

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