Kurnool Students Engineer Smart Dustbin That Segregates Garbage

KURNOOL: Students of G. Pulla Reddy Engineering College in Kurnool have developed an artificial intelligence-based dustbin that automatically segregates recyclable and non-recyclable waste at households and work places.

Once waste is dumped into this smart dustbin, it automatically directs biodegradable and non-degradable items into the respective bins.

The device has been developed by computer science students N. Harshavardhan, M. Bharani Kumar Reddy and P. Lahari. It has a platform on top to put the waste item. Above it, an ESP32-CAM camera is mounted.

The camera captures the image of the waste item, which is processed by a YOLOv3 deep learning model with images 3.33 lakh different materials. This large data set accurately identifies whether the item is recyclable or not. Once identified, the Arduino-controlled stepper motor automatically moves the flap to drop the item into the correct bin.

Recyclable waste falls into the green bin and non-recyclable waste goes into the red bin.

The smart bin has been tested successfully during trials.

Students who have developed the device say the smart dustbin can be used at many places, such as shopping malls, airports, bus stands, railway stations, schools, offices, houses, hospitals and even in municipal waste collection vehicles. It reduces human effort. The students say their system is low-cost and can be easily scaled from small households to large industries.

The project won the second prize at the national-level Infosys–PALS TechZooka Hackathon-2025 held at the Infosys Mahindra City Campus in Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu, on September 4.

At present, only a prototype has been developed and students are working to build it on a full scale.

Associate professor Dr. A. Vishnuvardhan Reddy says the system can be upgraded to separate waste into categories like glass, plastic, paper, organic waste and e-waste.