Real time bin status monitoring for solid waste collection route optimization

This paper presents a new method for real time solid waste bin monitoring with an optimization model to optimize solid waste collection route using real time bin information. The remote monitoring architecture consists of a set of sensing and communication technologies. A customary solid waste bin is acted as a sensor node which is installed with the sensory equipment. Several sensor nodes form a wireless sensor network (WSN) by using the communication technologies. To span the network coverage a gateway is used as coordinator. Using this architecture, updated information of each bin is collected as soon as waste is thrown inside a bin. Then, the waste collection routing problem is studied to travel minimum distance by the collecting vehicles such that all waste bins with a certain level filled up are emptied and the waste is driven to dumping sites. We offer a solution using Integer Linear Programming (ILP) for solving the problem. This research illuminate the usefulness of the bin monitoring system and the route optimization model that together can improve the solid waste management process for the municipality and the waste collection company.