In Chennai, App-Based Smart Trash Cans To Increase Plastic Recycling

Chennai:

As part of World Environmental Day celebrations today, a Chennai-based waste management company has launched a mobile app-based smart trashcans in a bid to motivate residents to come forward and dispose plastic bottles for recycling.

Smart trashcans project will be functional on June 23 in the city's Mylapore area, enabling residents to identify smart trash cans in the neighbourhood for plastic disposal. The sensor in the bins would alert the scrap merchants once its full and users too can earn prizes according to how much they dispose.

The app-driven campaign also brings together rag pickers and scrap merchants, making the system commercially more viable and sustainable. The aim, the Founder and CEO of of Kabadiwala Connect Siddharth Hande said "is to ensure that no plastic ends up in oceans and landfills by making plastic recycling fun, simple and effortless for the residents of the city".

India, experts say, does well in plastic recycling compared to other countries. Global estimates say more than 8.3 billion tons of plastic waste is generated every year and only a tiny 9 per cent of the complete waste is recycled. Chennai, however, recycles nearly one-third of its plastic waste and almost all of its PET bottles.

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The team believes this model would help public and private sector organisations leverage the existing informal sector to recover post-consumer waste cheaply, efficiently and more inclusively. Their target, they said, is to ensure that by 2020, all households in Chennai would recycle their plastic waste.