No more skips: ‘smart’ recycling bins don’t overflow, send out fire alert

Smart recycling bins, which are capable of avoiding overflowing waste and can alert authorities in case of a fire, will be replacing old-fashioned skips around Malta.

Using next generation Internet of Things technology introduced for the first time to the island by Vodafone Malta, the iBiNs have the capability to monitor waste levels and feed information back to a central system which enables GreenPak’s recycling service to prioritise and customise collection routes in the localities it serves across Malta and Gozo.

Speaking at the launch, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said it was the government’s responsibility to ensure that recycling is taken seriously, but that the help of the private sector was also needed.

“Our country has closed an eye to the problem of waste for too long. Years of inactions have passed by us, and now, in a short period of time, we must make huge leaps to be at the same level as other European countries,” Muscat said.

“This challenge has offered us an opportunity to put the public at the heart of solving the problem of waste disposal. The government’s perspective over time has also changed, and we now see waste as a challenge rather than a problem that is unsolvable.”

Muscat said the aim of the iBiNs was to facilitate waste disposal for people on a day-to-day basis.

“The goal is to make waste disposal as easy and convenient as possible, in this hectic day and age, but also to minimise the environmental hazard that not recycling can have - not just on the environment, but also the health risk that it poses to the people of Malta,” he underlined.

The smart bins will enable GreenPak’s recycling service to prioritise and customise collection routes in all of the 21 localities it currently serves, leading to reduced costs.

Waste collection truck drivers will be notified when a bin is full.

“Today marks a milestone in GreenPak history. This is a major step forward for recycling with introduction of state of the art bins that have never been seen in Malta before. With smart bins we are one step forward to making a Malta a smart city,” GreenPak CEO, Mario Schembri said.

The bins are equipped with temperature sensors that will immediately alter head office if the waste inside the bin has caught fire, something GreenPak foresees as a possible occurrence in the summer months.

Schembri said there will soon be a mobile app available which will allow people to located iBiNs around Malta, and that other features could also be added.

He emphasised that the old skips served their purpose, but that Malta needs something more effective.

The first bins have initially been placed in Pembroke, but Schembri hopes that by March next year 800 bins will have been rolled out to all 41 localities GreenPak service.