Technology-Enabled Sustainable Waste Management

Abstract

The collection of trash and litter has been increasing every day due to the increase in the global population. This has led to situations like the accumulation of plastic and other harmful materials in water bodies and on land. Environmentalists around the world are working to manage the waste generated due by daily activities and industrialization. Smart waste management has therefore become a widely discussed topic to obtain solutions in this regard. Smart waste management uses recent technologies to increase the efficiency of activities used for managing waste. This system uses a combination of hardware and software to know the amount of waste collected in a given area. The sensor-enabled bins will transmit the data of collected waste to replace the filled bins and reduce the chances of extra litter being dropped on the streets.

This chapter will discuss utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in improving the efficiency of waste management. IoT will be helpful in route optimization, and smart recycling, and improve the waste management process through data analysis. AI is considered to be an efficient way of recycling the waste as it does not need to rest and provides effortless solutions to sort and recover waste. Blockchain is a decentralized system and cannot be altered. Blockchain when combined with IoT can use smart contracts to improve the monitoring of waste and offer higher transparency. AI,IoT, and Blockchaincan digitize the recycling process and contribute towards finding sustainable efficient solutions to deal with the climate crisis that has become a huge global problem.