Smart Technology in Waste Disposal
Case reference FOI2018/01035
Published 5 October 2018
Request
I am currently conducting a study into smart technology and how this is impacting towns and city centres around the UK. Please can you advise on the following points:
1. How many public litter/waste bins do the council own? To make the distinction clear this is public litter/waste bins and not residential bins.
2. Are the council responsible for emptying the bins or is this contracted to an external organization? If an external organization please can the council advise who this is?
3. Can the council confirm what the schedule for emptying the bins is, is this daily, weekly etc?
4. Can the council share what the assumed average cost for emptying the litter bins is?
5. Do the council currently have any 'Smart' technology deployed within its litter bins to monitor waste levels and provide alerts when the bins are full? If so can the council confirm which organization is providing this service.
6. If the council do not currently use any technology for this can the council advise the reasoning for this I.E. price, emerging technology etc
Response
The total number of litter bins which the street cleaning team deal with is just under 1000 approximately. Our parks and countryside have their own but I do not have their numbers.
The Council are the body responsible for the emptying of their own bins and in some cases those owned by certain parish councils.
Our schedules are based on historic knowledge except in the town centre, all shop fronts across the borough and heavily populated or footfall areas. These areas are emptied at least once a day and sometimes twice. Every bin is serviced and cleaned at least once a week.
Our estimate on cost varies on location, how many bins are close to each other and distance travelled. If we were to empty a bin on behalf of another agency we would raise an annual charge of £300 for this service.
We do not have any "Smart technology" attached with the emptying of litter/recycling bins.
We have looked at these options in the past and the cost implication, power hook up be it mains or solar and mixed with our current financial situation, we have not perused this technology at this time.
Documents
This is Guildford Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.