MIT's trash tracker promises to expose illegal waste risks

A team of MIT researchers is attempting to understand the migration patterns and costs inherent in current urban waste disposal and recycling systems to highlight potential inefficiencies.

The team's Trash Track project, which starts in September, will initially involve enlisting volunteers in New York, Seattle and London, who must agree to have their rubbish electronically tagged using wireless location markers.

Each item will then be tracked using a triangulation process and the information passed to a central server, where it will be analysed in real time. Interested parties will be able to view the items' movements online as well as visit exhibits in Seattle's Public Library and at the Architectural League in New York.

Assaf Biderman, associate director at MIT's SENSEable City lab, said: "The study of what we call the 'removal chain' is becoming as important as the supply chain. Trash Track aims to make the removal chain more transparent. We hope that the project will promote behavioural change and encourage people to make more sustainable decisions about what they consume and how it affects the world around them."

The initiative was inspired by the Green NYC scheme, which aims to boost New York's current recycling rate of 30 per cent to nearly 100 per cent by 2030. The pervasive use of smart tags is seen as a potential means of achieving that goal.

But such technology could also play a major role in helping firms ensure they are not in breach of the Basel Convention which prevents landfill and toxic waste being shipped across country borders.

The legislation is meant to tackle the practice of shipping waste from developed economies to poorer nations, where it is often disposed of at illegal sites where the waste pollutes water supplies and contributes to health problems.

However, numerous investigations have revealed that breaches of the Convention remain widespread with large quantities of waste from the UK and other developed countries routinely found at dumps in Africa, South America and parts of Asia.

Only this week, a ship that set out from Felixstowe in the UK was held by the Brazilian port authorities for allegedly containing hundreds of tonnes of illicit household and hazardous waste.

The Brazilian environment agency, Ibama, contacted its UK counterpart about the incident, and the latter has since launched a formal investigation into the claims. Ibama has also fined the import companies involved with the shipment.