Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management https://doi.org/10.1007/s10163-020-01137-9 ORIGINAL ARTICLE An IoT‑based bin level monitoring system for solid waste management S. R. Jino Ramson 1,2  · D. Jackuline Moni 3  · S. Vishnu 2  · Theodoros Anagnostopoulos 4  · A. Alfred Kirubaraj 3  · Xiaozhe Fan 1 Received: 5 April 2019 / Accepted: 2 November 2020 © Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Improper disposal of solid waste that impacts human health and pollutes the environment, arising a need for successful and necessary collection of waste materials. However, most trash bins placed in cities can be seen overfowing due to traditional or inefcient waste management approaches. Therefore, a real-time remote monitoring system is needed to alert the level of garbage in bins to the relevant authority for immediate waste clearance. This paper presents the development and validation of a self-powered, simple connect, IoT solution to monitor the unflled level of trash bins from a central monitoring station. The end sensor nodes of the developed IoT system are called Bin Level Monitoring Unit (BLMU) which are installed in every trash bin where the unflled level needs to be monitored. Every BLMU measures the unflled level of the trash bins and transmits it to a wireless access point unit (WAPU). Each WAPU receives the unflled level data from several BLMUs and uploads it to the central server for storage and analysis. The waste collection authority can view and analyze the unflled level of each bin using a smart graphical user interface. The following important experiments were carried out to validate the developed system: (1) the developed bin level monitoring system was tested by flling a trash bin with solid waste at various levels, and the corresponding unflled level of the trash bin was monitored using the smart graphical user interface. (2) The life expectancy of the BLMU was evaluated as approximately 434 days. (3) The maximum transmission distance between a BLMU and a WAPU is 119 m. (4) The cost of a developed trash bin is 107 USD. Based on the results achieved, the developed trash bins can be suitable for smart cities. Keywords Solid waste management · Internet of things · Smart city · Bin level monitoring Introduction The trend of urbanization is emerging worldwide. According to United Nation’s population division 2014, 70 percentage of the population would be living in cities by 2050 [1]. Since more population moving to urban areas, city administrations across the globe are allocating more budgets for infrastruc- ture [2]. The cities which are safe, sustainable economy, well-organized, contented, renewable energy, competent mobility, energy efficient and interactive are called as “smart cities” [3]. In smart cities, the key infrastructure can be designed by IoT systems, sensor networks, cameras, data centers, and so on, which allows the city authorities to provide essential services to the customers in an efcient manner. Also, smart cities use technology profciently for transport management scheme, advanced health care ser- vices and develop robust reliable wireless communication networks to connect all businesses, people and things [4, 5]. One such essential service is solid waste management. Solid wastes are related to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce its efect on health and the environment of smart cities [6]. According to the world bank, the world cities gener- ated 2.01 billion tons of solid waste add up to a footprint of 740 g per person in a day in the year 2016. Owing to rapid population growth and urbanization, the annual waste generation is expected to increase by 70 percentage * S. R. Jino Ramson jinoramson@gmail.com 1 School of Engineering Technology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA 2 Department of ECE, Vignan’s Foundation for Science, Technology and Research, Guntur, India 3 Department of ECE, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore, India 4 Department of Business Administration, University of West Attica, Psachna, Greece