2020 IEEE Region 10 Symposium (TENSYMP), 5-7 June 2020, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Energy saving smart waste segregation and

notification system
Md. Sajedur Rahman Md. Jahirul Islam
Supriya Sarker
Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Dept. of Computer Science &
Dept. of Computer Science &
Engineering Engineering
Engineering
World University of Bangladesh World University of Bangladesh
Chittagong University of Engineering
Dhaka, Bangladesh Dhaka, Bangladesh
& Technology
[email protected] [email protected]
Chittagong, Bangladesh
[email protected] Ashraful Alam
Dept. of Computer Science &
Dipta Sikder
Engineering
Dept. of Electrical and Electronic
World University of Bangladesh
Engineering
Dhaka, Bangladesh
World University of Bangladesh
[email protected]
Dhaka, Bangladesh
[email protected]

Abstract— The increase in the generation of waste due to

the continuous growth of urbanization and industrialization
has become a severe problem for the government. Population
density, lifestyles, economic conditions have a great impact on
alarming waste composition. Hence, waste segregation is
necessary to save our environment. The traditional manual
method used for the segregation of waste in Bangladesh is
time-consuming and can have adverse effects on the health of
the involved people. Proper segregation can bring the economic
values of the wastes as well. The proposed smart segregation Fig. 1. Average waste composition in urban areas of Bangladesh in 2014
system will notify the garbage boy after reaching the amount of
waste at a certain level. If waste is not collected from that
areas of Bangladesh which leads to severe environmental
smart bin in time, the system will send a notification to the City
Corporation. The proposed system will help to reduce the pollution [4]. The city corporation solid waste management
intensity of greenhouse gases as well. The system will consume system has an agreement to collect the waste regularly from
electricity when an absence of sunlight, otherwise it consumes every residence. However, staffs have apathy to doing their
solar energy which saves energy consumption on sunny days. jobs regularly [3]. Therefore, a smart system should be
implemented to resolve the current problem in Bangladesh.
Keywords— Internet of things (IoT), smart segregation,
waste management, environment pollution, solar energy, smart
bin
There are some countries like Japan that use separate
trash bins for wet and dry waste products and these areas are
monitored by roadside surveillance cameras. In this way,
I. INTRODUCTION people are being prevented from using the wrong bin. If the
With the accelerated growth of population and wrong bin is used, penalties are also imposed. In the case of
urbanization, the municipality garbage is increasing at the urban areas of Bangladesh, people store their domestic
same rate. In the whole world, 2.01 billion tons of municipal wastes in an individual bin in every house. As every
solid waste is generated per year and at least 33% of that is residence is not monitored by surveillance cameras, it is not
not safely managed in an environment-friendly way. It is possible to ensure that people store waste in an appropriate
assumed that the amount will be 3.40 billion tons by 2050. bin. Hence, automatic segregation at the residence level is
Expeditious growth of population is one of the crucial very important for maintaining the quality of the recycled
reasons for waste generation in the urban areas of the densely
product produced from domestic waste.
populated countries of Asia like Bangladesh [1]. According
to the Bangladesh Waste Database 2014 [2], the percentages
of the average composition of solid waste in different urban Energy is a crucial need for attaining technological
areas of Bangladesh are depicted in Fig. 1. Environmental improvements all over the world. The annual energy
pollution emerges from the garbage if it is being managed in consumption rate was approximately 15.6%, 13.8%, 13.6%
an unsystematic and chaotic manner. The growing amount of in commercial, households, and manufacturing services,
waste and the necessity of more landfilling area has a vital respectively. Hence, alternative energy preferences need to
impact on the emission of greenhouse gas in Bangladesh, be considered. The need can be met by taking advantage of
hence, responsible for climate change [2]. The collection of renewable energy sources. Solar energy can be a partial
waste is an essential step in managing wastes. Lack of solution to the problem of scarcity of energy [5]. Bangladesh
awareness of city dwellers and proper planning and pledge of is situated in a favorable position to conserve solar energy [6,
government have brought an alarming situation [1, 3]. 7]. It is noted in [8] highest level of radiation is accessed
Unfiltered dumping of solid waste is very common in urban from March to April and the least amount of radiation is

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accessed from December to January. Therefore, it is very Hence, the major contribution made in this research is the
necessary to the development of smart waste segregation and development of a lightweight, economical, and environment-
notification system which consume optimal energy. friendly smart dry-wet waste segregation system that will
segregate the household waste in the residential level using
solar energy in presence of sunlight, otherwise other energy
A concise description of the existing approach is
sources and to reduce environmental pollution, notify
presented in Section 2. The proposed method including the respective authority regarding the collection of garbage in
structure of the smart bin and hardware setup is described in due time. Therefore, the developed system facilitates the city
Section 3. The device prototype is shown and experimental corporation to monitor the management of garbage at the
results are analyzed in Section 4. The paper is being household level.
concluded in Section 5.
III. PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
II. EXISTING APPROACH
This section explains the architecture and working
From the literature reviewed, it is observed that an procedure of the proposed system including the structure of
enormous system has been proposed and developed for an the proposed smart bin.
automated waste segregation system (AWS). In [9] an
Automated Waste Segregator (AWS) system has been A. Structure of Proposed Smart Bin
employed with a complex hardware architecture including
parallel resonant impedance sensing mechanism and Our smart bin is divided into three horizontal layers,
capacitive sensors to segregate dry, wet, and metallic wastes which are top, middle, and bottom layers. Fig. 2 shows the
at the household level. In [10] an automatic system using architecture of the smart bin. The top layer has a hole
programmable logic circuit has been presented in which through which garbage will be thrown into the bin and a
infrared sensor, moisture, photo-electric, inductive, motion sensor mounted adjacent to the hole. The middle
capacitive sensors, and hydraulic cylinders have been layer contains a rain sensor and servomotor. Two ultrasonic
interconnected on the conveyor belt. However, at the initial sensors are mounted in the bottom layer. The bottom layer is
stage of the system, a crusher has been used to reduce the divided into two separate sections to contain wet and dry
amount of waste which might be degraded the quality of waste.
garbage and increase the possibility of mixed up of garbage.
A DC gear-driven mobile unit was proposed in [11] which B. Hardware Set Up
was controlled by the user with the help of a graphical user We have set up both conventional AC current sources and
interface along with wifi interface provided by the Zigbee solar energy systems. Due to the suitable geographical
transceiver pair. In [12] a prototype was proposed to location of Bangladesh, there is ample sunlight from March
separate metal waste using programmable logic Controller. month to September. Our proposed system can operate
Sharanya et al. in [13] proposed a waste aggregation system using solar energy on a sunny day. If solar power is not
using Arduino UNO. In the system, a prototype was available due to rain or cloudy day, AC current will provide
developed using an IR proximity sensor for waste detection, energy. The solar panel generates 12v DC current is being
moisture sensor for detecting the wet object, an inductive connected with the power supply board. Fig 3 demonstrates
sensor for metal detection, and Laser LDR circuit for plastic the block diagram of the system. From the power connector
and paper detection. In [14] a remote solid waste monitoring power source gets a supply of 220v AC. The power
system has been proposed which implemented WIFI and connector is connected with a transformer that converts the
GPRS module to store current waste status and location of AC current into 12v DC current. A transformer is connected
the smart bin into the database, Pyroelectric sensor to with the power supply board. In the board, a full-wave
monitor the motion of new garbage inside the smart bin, bridge rectifier will stabilize the noise and excessive current
solar sensor to use solar energy as a source of energy, GSM flow. The planted capacitor will store excessive current flow
module to send message to the garbage collector. However, and release it over time. Voltage regulator IC will regulate
the system fails as there is an inadequate supply of solar the 12v current into 9v. If the current flowing through the
energy in the cloudy days, and hence the system is regulator IC is less than 9v in any case then the capacitor
inappropriate for use in the rainy and winter season. will release the stored current to give a backup current
Moreover, the proposed smart bin stores both dry and wet supply. The heat sink on top of the regulator will consume
waste together which degrading the quality of reusability. In the excess heat and resist overheating of the regulator. The
[15] the authors proposed an automatic metal, plastic and output current from the power supply board will flow in the
organic waste segregator system by implementing three micro-controller of Aurdino Uno [16]. The micro-controller
ultrasonic sensors to measure the level of stored waste, power input system will convert the 9v current into 5v DC
inductive proximity sensor to separate metallic waste, blower current.
to separate plastic and paper waste. The authors have
assumed that plastic and paper wastes are lightweight
compared to wet wastes and blown in the presence of high-
speed blowers while wet wastes cannot. However, there are
many types of wet wastes that are very lightweight compared
to plastic, paper, or wood waste. Therefore, the rate of false
detection of waste status will be increased. Most of the
proposed systems are not appropriate for real-time use with
garbage bin in our residence for their complex structure.
Besides, they consume a certain amount of electricity for Fig. 2. Structure of the proposed smart bin
operation.

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 IV. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The developed system has been implemented in the
residence to test the system in real-time. This section
illustrates the device prototype and lists the experimental
data for some common household wastes.
A. Device Prototype
Fig. 4 demonstrate the whole prototype of the automated
dry-wet waste segregation system and Fig. 5 shows the inner
view of the smart bin. The white box is the proposed smart
bin which contains a hole on the top of the smart bin, and
motion sensor, rain sensor, ultrasonic sensor, and servomotor
inside it.
B. Experimental Data
We have implemented the proposed system in residence
Fig. 3. Block diagram of the proposed system
in real-time. Table 1 lists the amount of moisture measured
From here 5v output current will be generated and it will be by rain sensor, type of objects, and degree and direction of
connected to the power supply board from where LCD the rotation angle of the servomotor for some common
display and GSM will get the input current flow. GSM, threshold wastes, mostly food waste. It has depicted in Fig. 1
servomotor, rain sensor, ultrasonic sensor, motion sensor that food waste is the most generated waste in 2014. In Table
interfaces with the microcontroller through the wire. I, the segregation results of dry wet waste have
demonstrated. Wet waste means organic wastes such as
cucumber peel, banana peel, food waste, tea bag, etc. Dry
C. Architecture of the Proposed System
waste includes paper wastes, wood, plastic bottles, cotton
The proposed system is divided into three modules, cloth, glass bottles, etc. The threshold value for the
which are Object Detection Module, Level of Waste categorization of dry and wet is 30%. As measured moisture
Detection Module, and Notification Generation Module. value of stones, wood, batteries, tinned can, plastic bottles,
The modules are explained below: glass bottles, polybags with vegetable peel by rain sensor
1) Object Detection Module: A motion sensor is used garbage is lower than the threshold moisture value they are
adjacent to the hole of the garbage box which detects the categorized as dry garbage. Similarly, the moisture measured
motion of any object coming through the hole. By detecting in raw pumpkin peel, raw potato peel, raw orange peel, raw
motion, the motion sensor sends a signal to the rain sensor apple peel, paper, cotton clothes, tea bag, banana peel,
to measure the amount of moisture. If the moisture level is cucumber peel by the rain sensor is higher than the threshold
more than 30% then it will be considered as wet waste and if moisture value they are categorized as wet garbage. When
less than that the waste will be considered as dry. When the vegetable peels in a polybag are thrown in the smart bin
microcontroller confirms the type of waste, it will make the provides the wrong direction of rotation and detects as dry
motion sensor move accordingly. If the waste is dry then the waste because it is a complex object.
servomotor will rotate a degree of 90 left and send the A graphical representation of humidity variation of
garbage to the dry container, else it will rotate a degree of collected garbage objects is shown in Fig 6. It is clear from
90 to the right to send the garbage to the wet garbage the graph that food waste especially vegetable and food
container. waste contain most moisture ranging from 6% to 12%
2) Level of Waste Detection Module: Two ultrasonic (object 1 to 7). Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 show the notification and
sensors measure the amount of waste in the two containers address of residence which are sent to a garbage boy and to
separately and continuously and send signals to the higher authority when 80% and 90% of the capacity of the
microcontroller. The microcontroller sends the signal to the smart bin is being full of garbage, respectively.
LCD and the display will show the percentage of waste in
the container.
3) Generation of Notification Module: Notifications
from the segregator will mainly be generated by GSM.
When the ultrasonic sensor detects that garbage has reached
80% of the total capacity of the container, it will send a
signal to the microcontroller. The microcontroller will
instruct GSM to generate a notification. Finally, it will
transmit the notification with the location of the smart bin to
the garbage-boy automatically. If the garbage-boy would not
collect the garbage even after 90% of the total capacity of
the smart bin then a message report will be automatically
transmitted to the City Corporation.
Fig. 4. Device prototype of Fig. 5. Inner view of the smart
smart dry wet waste segregation bin
system

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 TABLE I. LIST OF DETECTED WASTE STATUS, MEASURED
HUMIDITY AND D IRECTION OF R OTATION

Status
Objec Humidity Wrong
Waste Name Detect
t No. (%) Rotation
ed
1 Stones 6.6 Dry No

2 Wood 12.7 Dry No

3 Tinned Can 18.5 Dry No

4 Batteries 20.3 Dry No

Polybags with
5 20.8 Dry Yes Fig. 7. Notification received Fig. 8. Notification received by
vegetable peel
by garbage boy higher authority
6 Plastic bottles 22.9 Dry No

7 Glass bottles 27.6 Dry No garbage so that rain sensor can measure the moisture of all
the garbage separately. By using solar energy instead of
8 Cotton clothes 40.7 Wet No
conventional power source makes the system more
9 Paper 45.3 Wet No environment-friendly and economical. Our notification
system ensures the disposal of waste in time. Thus, the
10 Raw Apple peel 83.5 Wet No
cleanliness program of the municipality becomes successful.
11 Cucumber peel 84.2 Wet No

12 Raw Potato peel 85.06 Wet No REFERENCES

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