Waste Innovation : Melbourne to use Nokia’s AI technology to monitor waste dumping

Melbourne is trialling Nokia’s Scene Analytics AI technology to stay ahead of open waste dumping.

The partnership is supposed to help the city better understand and keep track of the waste behaviour of its residents.

According to Nokia, the city’s use of its AI-powered solution will ‘keep alleys even safer, cleaner and free from rubbish’.

Originally, the Australian capital offered its residents as well as businesses subscription-based access to large-capacity compactor facilities. (These facilities are used to squash waste into smaller, more manageable cubes or bales, thereby eliminating the need for transportation and energy costs.)

A wish to understand to what extent said service was being used led the city to work with Nokia.

The Finland based mobile phone manufacturer leveraged a network of existing cameras situated around the compactor as Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to detect activity.

Data was collected from both the cameras as well as from other data sources, one attached to the compactor itself. Collated information was then filtered by an AI algorithm to produce reports in real-time.

Object detection was used to determine what types of objects were placed within the compactor while anomaly detection identified unusual movements such as illegal waste dumping at night.

By making use of networked AI in this form, the City of Melbourne is set to address non-sanctioned waste dumping swiftly while simultaneously lowering maintenance and down-time costs for waste management services.

Lord Mayor of the City of Melbourne, Sally Capp, said: “This is a great example of using new technology to help remove illegal waste more quickly, make our city cleaner and protect the environment. Our partnership with Nokia is another way we are gathering data to make Melbourne a safer, smarter and more sustainable city.”