Smart garbage management system for a sustainable urban life: An IoT based application

Abstract

Proper waste management is one of the major problems for densely populated urban areas. It is getting difficult day by day to lead a healthy, sustainable living in urban areas because of environmental contamination. Due to the lack of proper waste management approach, problems like an overflow of waste occurs that badly harm our environment. Polluted surroundings result in the spread of various kinds of diseases in an epidemic form. For developed and developing countries, waste management is a challenge to long-term development. Proper management of waste is getting tougher because of increasing population, urbanization, and industrialization. In this modern era of technology, we need to apply technology-based solutions to handle large amounts of waste for overpopulated urban areas. We have reviewed several recent research articles related to the smart waste management system, and almost all of them have some major limitations as well as progress. To ensure environmental hygiene and sustainable urban life, we have presented a smart IoT based integrated system consists of an identification system, an automated lid system, a display system, and a communication system. Arduino Uno is used as a microcontroller to synchronize all of the four systems. Sensors are used for identification and measuring the garbage level. The system provides the facility of continuous monitoring of the status of waste inside the garbage bin and shows the percentage filled up on liquid crystal display (LCD). The communication system uses a global system for mobile communications (GSM) module that will inform the corresponding authority to collect the waste when the garbage bin is filled up. The proposed waste management system is much more efficient than any other conventional waste management system as it reduces the use of manpower, avoids spillover of waste, saves time, more economical, and most importantly it is a completely automated system.

Introduction

Proper management of waste should be a priority to reduce environmental pollution and to ensure the safety of public health. In developing countries, waste management and awareness is an emerging concept. To ensure the sound environment and sustainable development, appropriate management of waste is a must. Nevertheless, in developing countries, due to lack of infrastructure and unsustainable practices have made waste management worst, which leads to environmental contamination. The open dumping and picking of waste within open dumpsites lead to serious health risks like skin infections and chronic diseases. In slum areas, the situation gets worst because of the high density of the population. It is a clear indication that environmental / health issues and poor waste management are interrelated.

The increase in population, urbanization, and industrialization increases the waste generation level throughout the world. More than 64% of the population in the developing countries and more than 84% in the developed ones will be in urban areas by 2050 [1]. Hence waste management is a global issue in terms of various environmental and social impacts.

The world generates 2.01 billion tons of municipal solid waste annually, with at least 33% that - extremely conservatively - not managed in an environmentally safe manner. Global waste is expected to grow to 3.40 billion tons by 2050. Worldwide, waste generated per person per day averages 0.74 kg but ranges widely, from 0.11 to 4.54 kg. The total quantity of waste generated in low-income countries is expected to increase by more than three times by 2050 [2].

Now, like other low-income countries, Bangladesh is one of the developing countries in the world, with a huge population within a small area. Dhaka is the capital city of Bangladesh, having an area of 306.8 km² [3]. Dhaka's 2020 population is estimated at 21,005,860, while 2030 may see as many as 27.3 million residents [4]. That indicates that Dhaka city is overpopulated. However, the waste management of Dhaka city is somehow overlooked by the local government. Around 234,000 deaths, including 80,000 in urban areas, due to environmental contamination and related health risks in 2015, making it one of the worst affected countries in the world [5]. A place like Dhaka city, where the density of people is high, just needs to provide an effective waste management system. A suitable approach that can manage waste in such a way so that it does not pollute the environment and ensure the safety of public health.

Fig. 1 (a) shows a garbage bin in the Laksmibazar area of old Dhaka. It is a regular picture of urban areas of Bangladesh. The waste management of urban areas of Bangladesh is not environment friendly. The dustbins have no lid over them, and most of them are placed on busy roads of urban areas. The dustbins are cleaned every day at the pick hour of the day when everyone goes to their workplace, and students go to their schools, colleges, or universities. Overflow of waste is seen frequently in almost all of the dustbins. Because of that, various kinds of infectious diseases are spread, and many people, especially children, losses their lives every year. The situation gets worst on Eid-Ul-Azha, which is the second-largest festival of Muslims. It is also known as ‘Feast of Sacrifice’. Most of the people in Bangladesh are Muslims. On this day, Muslims sacrifice cow, camel, or ram. These animals are slaughtered in open space that badly affects the environment. A picture is shown in Fig. 1 (b), where the wastes are kept on busy roads of Chittagong generated because of Eid-Ul-Azha. The slaughtering of animals in open space and mismanagement of waste makes urban life miserable and causes the spread of different kinds of diseases. The waste generated from urban life can be different types, as a paradigm, plastic, leather products, and rubber, textile and wood, glass, metal, paper, organic matters, and others. Fig. 2 shows the different kinds of waste generated per day (in kg) in different cities of Bangladesh. It is seen that Dhaka and Chittaging city generates more waste than the other cities. Among the different types of wastes, the most generated wastes are paper and organic matter, and the other types of wastes have an insignificant amount.

Based on the above issues, this paper proposed an effective and efficient garbage management system. The proposed system uses sensors for identification of personnel and measuring garbage level. Continuous data regarding garbage levels are available for personnel through the display of the garbage bin. This smart garbage bin provides an automated lid to personnel. When there are personnel detected within a 30 cm range of the garbage bin, the lid opens if the garbage bin is not filled up and the rest of the time, it remains closed. The garbage bin also sends a message to the corresponding authority to collect waste when the bin is 100% filled up. Arduino Uno synchronizes the whole automated system. A real prototype of the proposed smart waste management system in a small-scale bin is designed and found satisfactory results. Therefore, in brief, the contributions of the paper are,

• It provides a very simple waste management system that is eco-friendly. It also can bring a great change in people's perspective towards messy urban life.

• The proposed system is very much easy to handle than the traditional waste management system. It will also help to secure a worthy urban life.

• The system also provides an automated lid that prevents any kind of physical contact with a garbage bin. With IoT based application, it helps to avoid the overflow and spreading of waste.

The presented work of the paper is organized into seven sections. The motivation behind the works, and the contribution of the proposed works in social and environmental aspects are presented in Section 1. The previous existing works, similarities of the existing works and the proposed one, positive impacts, and the research gap are presented in Section 2. The structure, components requirements, and methodology of the proposed smart waste management system are delineated in Sections 3 and 4, respectively. The developed software framework is detailed in Section 5. The performance test, result, and economic feasibility assessment are detailed in Sections 6 and 7, respectively. The ability to integrate the proposed smart garbage management system with the existing one is presented in Section 8. Finally, a conclusion is drawn in Section 9.