New Trash Track Sensors Will Tell You Exactly Where Your Trash Goes
Jul 24th, 2009 Originally Posted by Moiz Kapadia
Researchers at MIT’s SENSEable City Lab have developed smart tags to be attached to individual pieces of your trash and send its location back in real time.
Where did that candy bar wrapper go after you tossed it in your trash bin? Did that juice container with a #1 recycling symbol make it to the recycling center? As soon as we throw something away, we lose our connection to it. We don’t stop to wonder where the trash goes – does it get burned, go to landfill, or get placed on a boat?
These questions and more will be answered by Trash Track, an information system designed to monitor the path your garbage takes when it leaves your bin. Researchers at MIT’s SENSEable City Lab have developed smart tags to be attached to individual pieces of your trash and send its location back in real time. The mobile sensor is akin to a miniature cell phone, encased in a type of resin to ensure its durability throughout its journey. Since cell phone technology is ubiquitous and cheap, Trash Track should be able to capture the location of trash globally. The team is looking to expose the “removal chain” of trash.