THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Dry waste collection hubs in the city are turning smarter. As a pilot project, a smart dry waste collection hub is being installed in the city. The six-chambered hub will have sensors which allow the live tracking of the discarded garbage’s weight in each chamber.
This will increase the ease of waste management while also help residents in dropping off waste. “Henceforth, all segregation hubs installed will be smart. The live tracking feed will be shared with residents and corporation officials. Residents can then drop off waste in various chambers accordingly and officials can collect waste on time,” said a corporation official.
The facility to track bins will be made available at the Smart Trivandrum app for the residents. “Presently, waste is being collected from homes by screening the QR code. Soon, this will be implemented at the hubs too, wherein we get to track the amount and type of waste being generated from each household,” he said.
Inventor duo
The new-age dry waste collection hub is developed by engineers Abhijith K M and Jesil M N and will be managed by the corporation. The smart bin was developed as part of an internship programme of the duo. The engineers did their internship at city-based NGO Thanal as part of their MTech translational engineering course in Government Engineering College (GEC), Barton Hill. The product is being offered by their start-up Carbonkraft which is under the incubation cell at GEC. The duo was assisted by Manu K Mohan, an engineering graduate who is interning at their start-up.
“The details such as the level to which each chamber is filled and the weight of the discarded materials in the chamber can be tracked,” said Abhijith. “This helps further in developing a database about the type and quantity of waste collected in the city and is the ideal choice for urban trash management,” he said.
Different chambers
The various dry waste chambers include paper, plastic, metal, glass, clothes and bags and footwear, in which each category of waste can be dropped off. Each chamber except glass waste and clothes can accommodate dry waste up to 40kg. The chambers are top-loading unlike the present front-loading ones installed in the city.
“With the top-loading system in place, we get more space and more volume of waste can be accommodated,” Abhijith said. “The hub is crafted out of galvanised iron sheets and the parts are held together by screws which makes for easy maintenance. It is also movable, as it has four wheels,” he said.
The hub was sponsored by NGO Thanal and is set up in front of Organic Bazaar in Jawahar Nagar. It will be inaugurated by Mayor K Sreekumar at 10am on Friday.