With states and municipalities implementing increasingly aggressive diversion goals, getting consumers to toss the right items in the correct bins is a key component of reducing what ends up in landfills.
With rules sometimes being different from state to state, town to town or, even, building to building, confusion can reign. As a result, high-traffic venues often substantially overspend on waste collection, contamination fines and additional labor to pre-sort before collection. A Seattle-based start-up company is hoping to take the guesswork out of waste sorting and disposal through the introduction of its version of a “smart bin.”