RSS Feeds
Gadgets
What Rubbish: Councils Monitor Your Trash With RFID
Posted by Nick Broughall at 2:36 PM on April 14, 2008
Residents in NSW's Randwick Council received a lovely gift recently - fancy new bins for their rubbish and recycling. 78,000 of them, in fact.
No it wasn't a misguided attempt to swing votes by lavishing gifts on the electorate. It was a way of introducing RFID tags onto the bins so that the council and their waste management contractor couldspy monitor the amount of rubbish and recycling being done throughout the area.
No it wasn't a misguided attempt to swing votes by lavishing gifts on the electorate. It was a way of introducing RFID tags onto the bins so that the council and their waste management contractor could
Randwick isn't the only council using the technology - Ryde council introduced RFID tags on their bins back in 2006.
The trucks that collect the rubbish weigh the bins as they empty them, and then use the bin's RFID chip to monitor the households waste and recycling quantities.
Despite fears that the councils will use this information to raise waste management fees and spy on residents, they claim that "bin weight data will help identify average bin weights by type and suburb. This information will also be used to develop waste education material." They also say that only the councils themselves and their waste management contractor have access to the data.
Potentially, this is a great use for RFID technology if it results in increased recycling and less household waste. But is it possible for a government agency not to use all that detailed information for evil? We'll just have to wait and see whether prices go up for waste management in these new tech-savvy councils.
[SMH]
Comments
feral
Posted April 14, 2008 4:31 PM
Marvelous, I will have to start putting the aspestos in someone elses bin during the dead of night...
Adam Snow
Posted April 14, 2008 5:15 PM
They might be concerned that my green waste disposal is 0 Kg's (It all goes in my compost bins) and that my recycling is next to nothing. I buy very little in the way of glass and tin. All paper/cardboard goes into the compost also.
dan
Posted April 14, 2008 7:46 PM
if they use this info as a pricing mechanism it'll mean that you'll get charged by the kg of waste you generate. as that would provide a price incentive to lower the amount of waste you generate that is surely a good thing??
Brett
Posted April 14, 2008 9:36 PM
If they were to charge per kilo of waste: What would stop people from sneaking over and putting some of their rubbish into their neighbours bins?
Dave
Posted April 14, 2008 10:38 PM
I live in the Ryde council area and nothing has ever come of the RFID chip so its all good!...unless of course they somehow find out we arent washing out our bottles of milk or whatever properly and come and arrest us.