With costs rising at all points in the waste management process, shrinkinlandfill space, and growing consumer interest in recycling, RFID is enabling cities and towns across the country to foster recycling while improving the efficiency of their waste operations.

Taking advantage of RFID’s ability to reliably identify individual receptacles, municipalities can create incentive-based recycling programs that accurately reward customers for the amount they recycle, while minimizing the amount of trash headed for the landfill. By automating the collection of all waste, RFID can assure that individual bins have been collected, providing verification of service. In addition this information can be used to optimize truck usage and routes. With a fully automatic data collection system based on RFID, versus manual methods, customer billing processes can be streamlined and more accurate. 

Automated accuracy in all aspects of collection and disposal is a primary reason the recycling and waste industry is adopting RFID in the following areas. 

Incentive-Based Recycling: A handful of forward-thinking municipalities are already using RFID tags for incentive-based recycling. One recent example is the city of Philadelphia’s partnership with Recycle Bank. Philadelphia residents receive a bin fitted with a low frequency (LF) RFID tag that identifies each household. Recycling trucks are outfitted with a scale and a RFID reader. On recycling pick up day, a resident’s bin is placed on a scale, identified by the RFID tag and reader, and then weighed. The Recycle Bank system tracks how many pounds of recycling each household produces per month, and the households then receive Recycle Bank Rewards Dollars. Residents can redeem rewards dollars with more than 300 retailers.

Bill by Volume: Depending on the city or town, trash collection pricing structures vary from flat fee, pay-as-you-throw and pay-by-weight. As recycling efforts become more mainstream, municipalities may turn away from flat fee-based systems and charge customers according to the amount of waste they generate. RFID technology improves the accuracy and efficiency of bill-by-volume waste collection. As the fully automated truck lifts the RFID-tagged bin to empty it, the tag’s ID number is read and eventually processed into individual customer invoices. Trucks fitted with scales can add weight data for pay-by-weight billing as well.