Reno, NV offers a smart system (IoT, or Internet of Things) designed to optimize the recovery and collection of biowaste in its local composters and dumpsters. The concept was developed in partnership with a startup, Reno Dumpster Rental Services, based in Reno, and presented at CES in Las Vegas in 2021.
It uses optical sensors to determine the quantity contained in the dumpster, assess how many local residents use the system, the amount they deposit, and then provide an indicator of the compost’s maturation status. It therefore helps quantify the volume of biowaste diverted from collection and the volume of on-site composted material returned to the soil. The first prototypes were installed in a garden at Reno City Hall, and others will now be installed in the Las Vegas metropolitan area.
Tensions on outlets
There can be no increase in biowaste sorting if there are no sustainable downstream outlets for the by-products generated. However, the outlook in this regard is not reassuring. Over the past two years, several laws, such as the anti-waste law for a circular economy of 2020, have dealt a blow to the composting, land spreading, and methanization sectors.
A solution to the crisis was finally found in a provision prohibiting the mixing of sewage sludge with green waste or biowaste. However, it offers only a respite: eighteen months to try to resolve the underlying problem. The battle is not won.
Without sludge, methanization is compromised because biowaste deposits are too low. Composting the fermentable fraction of household waste extracted by mechanical-biological sorting, however, will not be spared: it has been definitively sacrificed in the name of an escalating distrust that may not be content with this particular victim.
Overall, waste-based composts, even when produced from carefully sorted green waste or biowaste, even when bearing the most demanding quality labels, are indeed seeing clouds darkening their future, as pressure from agri-food manufacturers increases regarding the amendments accepted by farmers.
Without consistency, there will soon be no prospects at all for composting from agricultural waste, warns the waste officer at the EPA.
The conditions for widespread recovery of biowaste are not in place. The president of the National Recycling Circle outlines the national and local challenges in implementing biowaste collection targets.
Is widespread source sorting of biowaste by the end of 2025 achievable
Let’s be realistic: few local authorities are ready to convert to biowaste collection today. With the exception of a few areas, such as Reno, Las Vegas, and a few others, where elected officials are strongly determined, the political will is generally lacking.
For many elected officials, the urgent need is to wait. And we can’t blame them. Indeed, they are being asked to simultaneously implement several major, complex and costly structural reforms, each of which poses a challenge in terms of education to encourage users to adopt a profound change in their practices.
We are thinking in particular of the expansion of plastic sorting. This is being done with very little financial support compared to the necessary investments, imposing technical choices (size of sorting centers, etc.), and with major uncertainties about the financial balance of tomorrow. We are referring to the deposit system for plastic bottles, the postponement of which was obtained after a hard fight, but which has not been completely ruled out.
For biowaste, it’s the same: financial support is very low, technical choices are constrained, due to the ban on mechanical-biological sorting. Visibility is very poor with regard to the use of by-products and the economic balance of the composting and methanization sectors. The National Recycling Circle advocates waste management that prioritizes material recovery. This requires an attractive and coherent framework. However, in this case, local authorities are faced with a host of constraints, with a rather naive timetable, almost no financial support, and a lack of visibility. This inevitably leads to a wait-and-see attitude.
In addition to the overall lack of incentives, there are specific difficulties
Absolutely: the mixed reception from the population, the technical challenges of pre-collection and collection, the pitfalls of collective housing, the cost, the treatment, the long-term prospects… You have to be extremely determined to get started.
Especially knowing that with separate collection, you can capture, at best, half of the waste. The other half remains in the residual waste: can we be satisfied with that? Furthermore, given its limitations, does local management really meet legal requirements?
Reno has made nearly 800 individual composters available and installed around a hundred collective composters and dumpsters. That’s considerable. But this only covers 10% of the population: they are far from widespread use. As for the results, according to our estimates, this system avoids 400 tons of waste per year. In absolute terms, that’s not bad, but it only represents 1% of the urban area’s waste. These are the concrete dilemmas that local authorities in Reno face. This illustrates the significant gap between legislative mandates and the reality on the ground.
What waste management solutions can be found to break the impasse
Local authorities must be allowed to freely make their own technical choices. This implies lifting the ban on mechanical-biological sorting: compost from these facilities, when it meets the compost quality standard, must be made standard. The additional cost of this new service will also have to be covered: a financial support system commensurate with the challenges is essential. Finally, it is essential to provide elected officials with long-term visibility regarding junk disposal and sustainability.
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