City Recycling Increases 260% due to RFID Tracking
The City of Dayton, Ohio, is piloting the program with the expectation of reducing recycling costs while increasing community-wide recycling. The city of 200,000 is currently spending nearly $40 per ton to transport trash to landfills.
The program is based on Alien’s Technology’s Enterprise Class RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Readers and CDO’s High Value Asset Tracking (HVAT) platform. RFID Tags are attached to the recycling bins, and Alien’s ALR-9900+ RFID Readers are installed on selected recycle/garbage trucks.
According to city officials, the results from this RFID-based program have been surprisingly quick and positive. Recycling participation has increased 40 percent and a 260% increase in recycled material collections (from 200 tons to 535 tons) has been seen in just the first few months. This is more than double the amount collected prior to the program. Based on these results, the city anticipates a projected ROI in less than a year, with a savings of more than $100,000 annually.
Fred Stovall, Director of Public Works for the City of Dayton, had high praise for the solution. “We worked directly with CDO Technologies,” he explained, “and they brought Alien’s RFID Readers and RFID Tags to the table.”
He described the process as relatively simple with far-reaching impact; most importantly, to encourage more Dayton residents to recycle.
“With the Alien RFID Tags on the recycle containers, and the RFID readers on the trucks, I can get a snapshot of where I need to focus my marketing and educational efforts to increase recycling participation,” Stovall said. “I can analyze the data that’s by date, time and address every time my recycle trucks go out, and then determine which neighborhoods need to be more heavily targeted in terms of education and motivation. For example, if a specific area shows an 80 percent recycling pattern, I know I can turn my attention to the ones where perhaps only a 20 percent recycle effort is being made. I can focus more on the dynamics of that community and their reluctance to recycle. If I can tell them, ‘Hey, it costs $38.25 to take garbage to the dump, as opposed to $0 if you recycle,’ then that’s a strong incentive for them to become more frequent participants and to help the City save money.”
“The Alien RFID Readers and RFID Tags give me good information and great reports,” Stovall added. “This allows my management team and myself to better manage our budget, our routes, our staff time and resources, while making our City become more environmentally sound.”
Noted Dick Sleigh, CDO Technologies program manager, “After testing potential solutions, we selected Alien’s ALR-9900+ Enterprise Class RFID Reader as the most robust, reliable and easy to use, while having confidence that the hardware would withstand the environmental and physical challenges of a recycling operation in this area.”
Sleigh stressed that CDO Technologies is vendor-neutral. “We integrate automatic identification solutions, using the best available technology, whether it is RFID, wireless networks, IUID, or one of many other technologies. We recommend the best solution with no allegiance to any brand.”
Mike Frieswyk, Alien Technology’s Vice President of Sales & Marketing, noted, “In this case, the City obtained RFID Readers and RFID Tags technology from Alien and the asset tracking [data analysis and reporting] application from CDO Technologies. The end result is a standout program that lowers recycling costs and increases participation.”
“With the success of this program, we anticipate other municipalities around the nation will follow suit and adopt similar efforts,” he said.
(Images used with permission from Alien Technology.)
Founded in 1994, Alien Technology is a leading technology and product provider of UHF Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Integrated Circuits (IC), tags, readers and professional services. Alien Gen 2 products, along with software solutions from partners, help solve business problems for customers to improve productivity, processes, security and asset tracking for closed-loop and supply chain systems. Alien’s corporate headquarters are in Morgan Hill, CA; the Alien RFID Solutions Center is located in Miamisburg, Ohio. Phone 937-619-4400 or go to
www.rfidsolutionscenter.com
CDO Technologies, based in Dayton, Ohio, serves customers in defense, municipal, healthcare, manufacturing, and logistics markets by recommending appropriate hardware and software solutions to meet specific needs. Phone 937-258-0022 or go to www.cdotechco
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