description
- The aim of the BURBA project is to develop an automatic system to be used for intelligent waste management. The system consists of intelligent waste containers and an IT tool for waste collection and transport management, including RFID’s (Radio Frequency Identification) ability to reliably identify individual receptacles, users, single marked items or waste categories, and cell-phone-based LBS’ (location-based service) ability to allow an easy identification of the geographical position of the most suitable waste container and to improve its utilization by the citizen (the closest one to user actual position, not full, adequate for that waste category, etc). The BURBA rugged system is integrated into “intelligent waste containers” with capacities of 600 litres and over, for urban and industrial waste collection. It includes electronics for data transmission, for quantity and quality of waste measurement and a power pack that may be recharged using environmental energy scavenging. The foreseen IT tool will exploit the collected data in the frame of an advanced Waste Management concept. It will manage appropriately position and time of collection and optimize truck fleet path and queuing to waste disposal plants (for example incinerators that need continuous adequate feeding in quantity and quality); as well as the differential waste disposal to feed recycling facilities. It will compute service metrics and parameters for decision making and resources allocation. It will so far contribute to improve the management of the waste transport vehicles fleet, to minimise transportation path and diminish fuel expenditures as well as to optimise gain of disposal plants and service to citizens and industrial companies avoiding overfilled containers. Additional features of the platform are the support to rapid deployment of the containers on demand having the possibility to track their position and to redirect and reschedule the waste collection activities.