SmartBin is an IOT enabled garbage bin which enables efficient waste management for cities. This project was a regional winner in Hackathon 2015, an annual competition organized worldwide by Microsoft for their employees.
Hackathon Regional Winners 2015 - Consumer Category
India has a population of 1.2 billion. In a typical city the population is 1 million. Due to the high population and a general disregard to cleanliness, we see garbage lying around everywhere. For every zone we have around 40 public bins. In a typical day a garbage bin collects 12kg of waste which is cleaned twice a week. As a result of untimely collection we see overflowing garbage bins. This is very unhygienic and is a hot spot for spread of diseases.
Keeping in mind India’s government campaign of ‘Swacch Bharat’ to promote a clean, healthy India what we need is that - apart from a change in people’s mindset towards cleanliness; full support in terms of technology, infrastructure is necessary. Hence, ‘SmartBin’ was conceptualized which is an IOT enabled waste management solution.
The solution is a complete solution which consists of IOT enabled garbage bins, mobile apps, and cloud connectivity. IR sensors are embedded in the garbage bins which detect when the bin is 80%. A signal goes to the cloud and an alert is generated on the SmartBin application. This application is a hub for all the bins installed in the area, and indicates whenever a bin is full. This application is installed at a typical municipality division for eg. In this case, we concentrated the solution for Hyderabad. The smartbin application would be accessed by GHMC waste management officials, who will then send over vehicles to collect the garbage. Each vehicle driver has their own mobile application which will help them with directions to the bin in need of collection.
At the end of every week, or month a full range of analytics can be seen which will help in identifying areas with the maximum number of garbage, and build potential solutions around it. This data would provide valuable information for the city to manage its waste efficiently.
This solution was conceptualized, prototype, presented within a limited timeline of 3 days for the annual event for Microsoft worldwide - Hackathon.
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