RFID for Waste and Recycling Industry
Despite being a hot topic of debate and concern, waste and sustainability have recently risen even higher on the political, economic, and public agendas. Businesses also concentrate their outbound sustainable marketing efforts on items with a high recycled value, such as PET and glass bottles, while avoiding the cumbersome multi-layer boxes, which are substantially more difficult to manage. In short, they make a big deal out of a few responsible acts they are doing while conveniently ignoring the problems.
What is the aim?
For pay-as-you-throw reuse and recycling collection schemes, radio-frequency identification (RFID) shows that online was initially promoted as the solution. When waste and recycling containers were complete, asset tags were added, and information was analyzed, alerting haulers to dispatch a vehicle to clear the bins. However, RFID technology is increasingly being used to monitor containers and verify operations.
What has ToterTrax accomplished?
ToterTrax is a new integrated RFID-based installation and distribution (A&D) service from Toter, a Wastequip company and supplier of waste, reuse, and natural products collection items.
ToterTrax gives precise details on where and when new waste bins are distributed. According to the company, this new RFID framework and the portal-based system are the first to provide a fully digital solution for municipal and pickup truck waste disposal.
Toter has created a patented app that can read an RFID tag and start sending real-time data to the central server, such as delivery confirmation, time and date, and location. The data is checked after it has been sent to the server to ensure consistency so that there are no dupes in the system.
The data is then sent back to the delivery crews and the municipality or pickup truck through the app. To improve validity, the Toter app has an offline mode that forces a portal confirmation when the user comes back in Wi-Fi or cell range.
Why recycling with RFID is favorable?
RFID tags are increasingly being used to manage carts as municipal resources and track waste collection in real-time. RFID tags are widely used on recycling carts to monitor participation levels by road, street, and individual homes. RFID technology enables automatic asset monitoring (scanning) and real-time service verification when the cart is shipped to the customer’s home to the end of the cart’s lifecycle.
Early research published by Avery Dennison has also shown that a UK retailer can reduce food waste by up to 20% by guaranteeing to utilize RFID. It can be efficiently and rapidly detected, and goods can be carried forward and sold well within those dates. This change could save 60,000 tonnes of plastic packaging and 3 million tonnes of food per year just in Europe and North America.
In conclusion, RFID technology has the potential to minimize errors and maximize recycling. It can be used to incentivize customers to recycle more and minimize food waste both in the supermarket chain and at home and provide simple, localized knowledge about the reuse and recycling of the packaging.
