Bringing Garbage Cans into the 21st Century

Imagine a trash can that actually sorts your recyclables for you—and then tells you how much money your garbage is worth. Currently being developed at Georgia Tech, Smart Trash receptacles are being touted as an ecologically sound method of waste disposal that’s easy and rewarding to use.

Trash receptacles equipped with scanners that read bar codes and other product tags would record much of what is thrown away, along with the items’ potential resale value. They would then relay that information to recycling centers via WiFi. Recycling centers would set aside anything hazardous or toxic for treatment, storage, and safe disposal. Anything of value would be auctioned off, with proceeds going to the consumer, who would have the option of receiving cash back or applying the earnings to next month’s sanitation bill.

The cash incentive and user-friendliness of Smart Trash technology is intended to encourage more consumers to recycle and also enable them to easily recycle many more items than the current system allows, such as consumer electronics, for example. Developers are betting that the benefits for consumers (not to mention the environment) will outweigh any embarrassment of leaving yet one more digital trail behind.

Source: Georgia Institute of Technology, www.gatech.edu.