Nokia to help manage the use of Melbourne’s Garbage Compactors

Garbage disposal is a large problem in modern cities, especially in busy city centres. Those specific areas can be crowded during the day with tourists, local people, deliveries, workers, and the last thing you need is a garbage disposal team running around with small trucks, emptying the collected trash. However, we all like our cities to be cleaned so the garbage needs to be collected.
To reduce the number of garbage truck trips to the busy centre and to rationalize the waste disposal process, the City of Melbourne installed garbage compactors to several locations in the city centre. The city officials noticed that compactors need to be constantly monitored due to the illegal dumping, or potential damage of the compactors caused by wrong or hazardous garbage being disposed to it.

The real-time monitoring and detection of activity in the vicinity of the compactor will be done by Nokia’s Scene Analytics. This service is video analytics and IoT solution that help businesses and control their assets by using computer vision technology with advanced analytics. Nokia will be monitoring through cameras installed around and inside the compactors to detect eventual problems caused by an improper garbage disposal or any other issues such as illegal waste dumping during the night.

The City of Melbourne will be using the reports to get a better understanding of eventual compactor downtime caused by illegal waste-dumping activities or malfunctions, and informing maintenance teams to fix the problems on time. By viewing the compactors in real-time, the City of Melbourne will keep the access corridors free of any obstruction, rationalize the garbage truck and maintenance team trips to the compactors and reduce the carbon footprint.

Here in Split, Croatia, we have the same problem in the city centre during summer which is overcrowded by tourists. The main issue of mass tourism the city of Split is experiencing is the huge amount of waste generated by folks wandering around and numerous little shops and stores that are constantly opened. The local waste management company owned by the city, increased the frequency of small trucks to take care of the garbage in the city centre, and the result of that is an additional jam in the already crammed centre. I think that Split could use some AI solutions from Nokia too, and not just for garbage disposal rationalization, but also for making public transport more efficient.

 

For more details check Nokia Press Release.