Bengaluru girls develop smart bins to manage waste

Bengaluru: Will these “smart” bins, equipped with the latest technology, put an end to the garbage menace in the city? It could, if the invention of four engineering students from the city, all girls, is accepted by the BBMP and other civic bodies.

The bins use Global System for Mobile (GSM) technology, ultrasonics and gas sensors to enable garbage collecting authorities to map the location and clear the trash on time.

The innovators said that such bins are essential as the process of waste disposal and collection is made a lot easy. “When phones to TVs to watches and everyday gadgets have turned ‘smart’, why shouldn’t our waste disposal system take the same route,” asked Shraddha R. Baddi, one of the four inventors.

Fresh graduates of Electronics and Communication Engineering from MVJ College of Engineering, the team also includes Sagarika Reddy, Usha N.S. and Sunitha B.G. They came up with the ‘smart’ solution as part of their final year project.

Saying that such smart bins can be installed at different places in the city, the innovators said that the use of GSM, GPS and Labview, a system-design platform, will allow different stakeholders to be alert. “These bins keep truck drivers and authorities updated on the level of garbage filled. An SMS with the GPS location of each bin can be sent real-time. Labview, when attached to an LCD display board, keeps people around aware of the toxic levels of gases inside the bin,” Shraddha explained.

They are now further developing the project, testing it under real-time situations before they present it to the officials of BBMP and other municipal corporations in the state.