What is a smart recycling bin and why it is important to recycle.
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
What I’ll learn from this article: What is a smart recycling bin and why it is important to recycle.
Index
In today’s world recycling have become almost an obligation. Contamination is a real problem for the world, but do you know how recycling really work? Recycling is a way to convert old materials, or waste, into new materials.
That’s easy enough, but people around the world suffers on how to do this the right way, there are multiple bins, for every material. That can be confusing. Normal people just don’t know about the difference between polyethylene and plastic.
the smart bin
That’s why the smart bin was invented. The bin uses a computer to recognize the type of material that you’re throwing in through computer vision, it is like an algorithm that identifies the images, to identify the materials that are held in front of the cameras, a light then indicates you where you need to put the disposal.
These containers can connect with your phone, that way they can reward you for your contribution, driving up the recycling rate. These rewards can go from a reduce tax to a little monetary price.
That incentive is important, normal people just don’t care enough to try and help, so with this, they will have a reason. Not only this, as I will tell you later, this can be a real opportunity for small business.
it’s not cheap
But there is one problem here, these containers, as beautiful as they sound, don’t come cheap. According to thefutureofthing.com, these bins can retail at £430, obviously in the UK. By public standards, this is almost impossible to implement. But for small business and restaurants, this is just perfect, with this they can improve their image through a great and responsible way of recycling. This is a great business opportunity because remember, there are rewards, so the restaurant can reward their customers with promos with the app connection of the bins.
Yeah, these bins have apps, and internet connection too, it’s crazy but this is another reason to why this isn’t cheap. But this phone connection is important. It can help you to understand what material are you recycling and why are you recycling it. Also it will give you a record of the things that you have recycled. All in all, it is very helpful, and deserve the extra investment.
why is this important?
Why is all of this so important? Well, this should be obvious but if we don’t do this, we are hurting the planet. Think about how we dispose of our trash, yeah, and then that trash is burned and it generates pollution. Not only this, in many countries you are penalized with taxes if the landfills sites are full, so recycling can even save your money.
And is so helpful, picture this, how many trees need to die in order for you to have paper, so what happens if you reuse your paper? That way you are saving money saving trees, giving us more life, it is fundamental. Remember the three Rs, reduce, reuse, recycle.
Also, you should know that reusing materials saves energy because the amount of energy consumed for manufacturing from new materials is much higher.
And it is super helpful to reuse materials, that’s why some places will pay you for them. Yeah, about that…
money money money
We talked a little about the incentive that can help people to recycle more often. But I need to tell you how this works.
In some countries, if you recycle things like cans and the deposits will pay you for that, yeah, bottles and cans, it’s a good way to help the world and your wealth. Also, you can recycle metal, the most recycled material in the world and for good reasons is a material so valuable because it can be recycled over and over again. It depends on the type of metal, but with this, you can earn good money while helping!
By this moment I think that you know the drill here, yes, it’s more like selling old thing than recycling. All the same, the people that buy those things, they really do recycle them, so in the end it is the same thing, but for the common people this can serve as an incentive, and people around the world should know about the money, as little as it may be, that they can have with the things that they can recycle.
With the smart bin, this is easier, because it can help you to know how much you can be pay, you can even get promotions if the smart bins are located in restaurants! So be smart with this.
Not only this, even countries can get benefits, not only this helps them to make their streets cleaner, but they can reuse the materials and it is way cheaper and less dangerous to the world.
facts
And there is more, the hard facts, that more than 50% of the trash that we dispose of can be recycled. A goldmine right there, according to studies, only in Europe, the plastic material that is lost every year represent over 10 billion in wasted resources. That’s just crazy! And in this case, is even worse because plastic takes around 500 years to decompose. This is why the smart bins are necessary because remember, people don’t know or just don’t care about these facts, they don’t learn about this, so with that system is easier for them to do this.
Another great thing about this is that, like, not everything can be recycled so the bin can help you with that. The materials that can be recycled depends on your local recycling centre.
save the world
Even if it not cheap, the smart recycling bins deserve the investment, it will help us to save the world because remember, it makes all easier for us. Again, with them, we can know and learn what materials can be recycling, in the meantime we can even get money, so, we are talking of a big investment that can connect with peoples phones to teach them important thing about what kind of materials can be recycled, makes the process way easier and in exchange can give you a compensation for your time.
It is a big investment, yes, but it is worth it. People need to take care of the world and this is a good way to make them do that!