Citizens Pay Only for the Trash They Produce

Trash was once just plain dirty business. Now trash is high tech.

In North America and Europe, trash haulers are tagging garbage cans with RFID to help track the actual amounts of trash that consumers throw away. Tags are placed on the plastic bins, and they are read after trash cans are weighed on board a dump truck.

RFID transmits the ID number of the receptacle to the dump truck’s onboard computer, and it is combined with the canister‘s weight. This information is used for billing purposes, and it can allow consumers to better monitor how much waste they produce.

In a similar scheme, a company in the United States is RFID tagging recycling bins and weighing them when the bins are collected. Con-sumers can log on to a Web site and track their waste production, earning coupons and points for recycling more.

Now that’s high-tech trash.