Pilot Project for Smart Waste Collection in Comparison with Reduced Frequency Collection, in Drummondville

The City of Drummondville will carry out a pilot project to verify the technical and financial feasibility of implementing smart collection in the single-family sector before implementing it city-wide in Drummondville. The goals of the pilot project are to achieve the environmental objectives of diverting waste materials (overall diversion rate of 60% and 60% recovery rate for organic material, reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport and landfill), while maintaining the economic objective (lower costs than in the baseline scenario) and social objectives (public satisfaction). The three scenarios compared are as follows: • “Every 2 weeks collection” scenario: in effect until 2016; bi-monthly collection of waste and weekly collection of organic material (OM) except in winter (34 OM collections/year). • “Every 3 weeks collection” scenario: control group, for which waste collection frequency is every three weeks and OM collection frequency is increased to 41 OM collections/year, as in the rest of the city since 2017; the neighbourhood consists of 628 dwelling units (DU) whose bins will be identified and monitored throughout the period of the pilot project. • “Smart collection” scenario: pilot group, which consists of 725 DU in a residential neighbourhood that is representative of the city. Waste collection frequency will be weekly, and residents will be encouraged to put their waste bins at the curb only when they are full. Financial compensation will be offered for participants who achieve the reduction objectives, to simulate an incentive pricing situation. The proposed pilot project is connected with the waste management plan of the RMC of Drummond and the Quebec waste management policy of the Quebec Ministère du Développement durable, de l’Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques. The pilot project also follows the recommendations in the 2016 report of the Commission consultative sur l’élimination des déchets ultimes (CCEDU) of Drummondville. The City of Drummondville will develop a communication plan and consult a group of ambassador participants so that the project can be adapted to the needs identified. The ambassador participants will share their experiences and views with their peers at an open house that will provide an opportunity to address all of the actions to promote sound waste management. The pilot project will compare the following items: 1. Rate at which bins are put out (reading RFID chips on the three types of bins) 2. Quantity of garbage, waste material, and organic material, in kg/resident 3. Contamination rate in each waste stream (quality) 4. Consumption by collection trucks (L/km) as compared to the rate at which bins are put out 5. GHG emissions/km as compared to the rate at which bins are put out (comparison of benefits of smart collection to every three weeks collection). The deliverable will be the final report on the pilot project, which will contain the results of the pilot project, the lessons learned, and the proposed pricing grid. If the project results are conclusive, smart collection will be implemented in all neighbourhoods in the City. The pilot project will be the first opportunity to monitor the three collection streams: waste collection, recycling collection, and OM collection. The monitoring technology is the radio frequency identification (RFID) reader system, which depends on a 3G network to synchronize and transmit the data. This technology will be used to trace and quantify the three waste streams and determine their environmental and economic impact. For Drummondville, a medium-sized, heterogeneous municipality, smart collection is an incentive for recycling OM rather than an alternative to collecting it. (Project description from original funding application)