SH testing 'smart bins' to improve recycling and rubbish sorting

Photograph: courtesy Mali Maeder via Pexels 

We’ve seen Eleme’s delivery drones, mobile payment on the metro and now, the latest high-tech gadget to hit the streets are ‘smart bins.’ We’re talking recycling bins with artificial intelligence and facial recognition to track down the criminals behind bad waste management. No but really, Shanghai is taking strides to save itself from overflowing piles of rubbish clogging up lanes and sidewalks, before we end up living in a landfill. Okay, maybe that’s a bit extreme.

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According to The Paper, the advanced recycling system is said to have facial recognition, video surveillance, automated doors, QR code scanning, wifi, weighing scale and an alert system that detects whether the rubbish discarded has been correctly sorted into eight categories – they’re really not kidding around.

Photograph: courtesy Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Greenery and City Planning

Functions of the smart bins can be activated by scanning a QR code that opens a WeChat Mini Program where you can track your rubbish disposal patterns, collect points and exchange points for rewards. It sounds like a game to trick us into recycling… and it could very well work.

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As if keeping the environment clean isn’t rewarding enough, you can be rewarded with cash for your WeChat wallet. Nothing like a side-hustle to earn extra money from recycling. Although the amount isn’t specified, we think this will certainly be an incentive to encourage more people to think twice about separating paper from plastic.

Some neighbourhoods have been testing out different methods. In Xuhui district’s Tianlin 12 neighbourhood, each resident has been given recycling cards that will give them access to the bins during designated rubbish disposal hours.

Photograph: courtesy Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Greenery and City Planning

The cards are also linked to their identity. Therefore, the rubbish can be traced back to them through data sent to the neighbourhood committee by the smart bins – meaning they will have records of all the rubbish you’ve thrown out. You don’t want a misdemeanour in improper rubbish disposal on your record now do you?

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