Hey Smart Bin, meet Year 6

As product testing goes, inviting a group of 12-year-olds to put your innovation through its paces is a winning way to reveal its strengths and the things that need more work.

With CSIRO Principal Research Scientist Wei Ni and UTS researcher Dr Xu Wang looking on and answering questions, Year 6 students from Marrickville Public School worked their way through a large crate of drink cans, milk bottles and laundry liquid containers to test the prototype Smart Bin.

Smart Bin Technology uses Internet of Things (IoT), sensing, robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and infrared spectroscopy technologies to automatically sort plastic, metal and glass, as well as sorting specific types of plastic.

The bin is a proof of concept device designed to improve recycling rates and reduce contamination in waste streams, with NSW only recycling 10 per cent of its 800,000 tonnes of plastic waste.

It also supports turning waste into a resource, such as commercial construction materials from recycled glass, newspaper and polystyrene.

The Smart Bin will help to promote the circular economy and contribute to a carbon neutral future.
Professor Ren Ping Liu, UTS

CSIRO Principal Research Scientist Wei Ni said, “Smart Bin Technology could be used at venues like shopping centres, schools, cinemas, coffee shops and airports. It will improve recycling rates because it is so easy to use and could ensure that materials can be recovered for reuse.”

UTS researcher Professor Ren Ping Liu said: “Working with CSIRO, we have developed the latest IoT and AI technologies to build this amazing Smart Bin. It can simplify the recycling process and improve efficiency for waste classification and sorting. The Smart Bin will help to promote the circular economy and contribute to a carbon neutral future.”

CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Larry Marshall joined the students in the IoT lab and said innovation and collaboration were essential to developing Australia’s circular economy. CSIRO’s collaborative Ending Plastic Waste Mission has a goal of an 80 per cent reduction in plastic waste entering the Australian environment by 2030.

Dr Marshall said, “Solutions from science that will grow our circular economy take collaboration at every stage of the innovation process – from understanding plastics at a molecular level to reinvent the way plastic is used, made, and recycled, through to commercialising solutions that use new technologies like this Smart Bin, which is now in discussions to go to market, and spinning out new companies like ASPIRE to grow new circular economy jobs.

“Science can transform our economy into a circular one that renews and reuses what we previously discarded, creates higher paid jobs, advances new Australian technology, and protects our environment, while inspiring the next generation with what’s possible – during National Science Week and throughout the year.”