Design and implementation of a smart solid waste collection system

Solid waste collection systems are very important in today’s urban environment. The last three decades witnessed the development in urban areas over rural ones in a process called urbanization. Growth of urbanization is much more in developing countries than in the developed countries to the extent that it became a trend characterizing several developed and even least developed countries. Unfortunately, it has been observed that the systems currently used in modern cities do not provide a service of sufficient efficiency and quality, despite their high running costs. As an alternative, a smart solid waste collection system with all subcomponents was developed and applied in a small city in Turkey. In addition to the conventional waste collection systems, this system included smart features and optimization algorithms for route planning. The study presents the design philosophy, feasibility and pilot implementation of a smart solid waste collection system which can be operated with high efficiency at low cost.