DIGICOLL – Smart, digital Waste Collection in the Village of Villach

Summary

Whereas digitalisation and civil participation have been frequently implemented in different administrative areas of a city already (e.g. eGovernment, decentral energy production, etc.), urban waste management usually is still organized in an analogue and monodirectional way. Although waste management represents a huge potential for reduction of climate-damaging emissions, by increasing recycling quotas or optimizing collection-caused traffic. Not being high-tech sorting and treatment processes, most important precondition for efficient recycling is effective waste separation already in the households. Austria indeed shows a high potential for improvement in that sense, since, despite awareness rising campaigns and information, still 50 – 70 % of the residual waste is comprised of recyclable fractions or impurities, which prevent or hinder climate friendly recycling. In addition, collection trips e.g. for glass waste are still based on fixed plans, independently of the actual filling degree of the containers. Presented project aims to implement, exemplarily for the City of Villach in Carinthia (62.000 inhabitants), an area-wide smart, digital waste collection system, to sustainably impact individual behaviour of waste separation and to optimize collection trips. Main aspect is the transition of an analogue waste collection system to smart services for citizens, who are included in waste collection processes bi-directional. Intended improvement of waste separation behaviour as well as its accompanying higher recycling quotas and the optimization of collection trips on the basis of digital forecast models contribute significantly to decrease negative climate effects of the current waste collection system. That smart cities initiative is therefore incorporated in four of six activity fields of the call, namely “commodity flows & services”, “communication & networking”, “urban ecology & climate change adaption” as well as “settlement structure & mobility”.

Last edited on 03/31/2020

Projektdaten – Umsetzungsprojekt im 11 Call

Consortium