Smart Recycling Bins Project

Purpose & objective

The project arises from 2 starting point: We were studying in the subject of chemistry the topic: "separation mixture methods", while at the same time students realised that in their suburb there are not many recycling points as they would wish. Taking in consideration the aforementioned issues, we decided to design, develop, produce and test some recycling bins that eventually could be offered or traded with the major of the suburb in order to increase and improve the waste disposal in our city. Just before we started this project we realised that we had 3d-printers and laser-cutting machines which could help us not only to do some recycling bins but also smart recycling bins, smart in the sense that bins could be able to separate the waste by themselves, depending on the design that we would develop.

In our presentation then, we will provide information about: the materials available to do our project, modifications of material to make them functional to our project-product. Additional, a series of models and design, the ones that worked (as evidence of success) as well as the designs and products that failed.

Outline

Ideally we would like to bring our recycling bins to the conference (that will depend on the airline-travel conditions) in order to make the audience to separate waste by themselves with our bins. Alternatively, we could show some videos of the bins in action.

The whole session from objectives of the project, process of the project and evaluation of the project should not be longer than 10 minutes as a whole

Also, we would like that audience could help us to propose new design that they may think could be useful in order to develop new recycling bins. The new proposal made by the audience could be done on paper on in software called "thinker-cad" for more expert users. This "extra" part could be longer depending on the users, but it could last 10-15 minutes

Supporting research

Xu, Y., Wang, L., & Zhang, Y. (2023). Waste separation and recycling: A review of global trends and challenges. Journal of Cleaner Production, 296, 126079.
Wang, L., Xu, Y., & Zhang, Y. (2022). Development of new waste separation technologies for sustainable waste management. Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 166, 105553.
Li, Y., Zhang, Y., & Xu, Y. (2021). Improving waste separation behavior through public engagement: A systematic review. Waste Management, 128, 110666.
Zhang, Y., Li, Y., & Xu, Y. (2020). The economic and environmental benefits of waste separation and recycling. Waste Management & Research, 38(11), 1155-1165.
Liu, Y., Zhang, Y., & Xu, Y. (2019). Waste separation and recycling policies and practices in selected countries. Journal of Environmental Management, 242, 1099-1110.