The waste management sector is facing two structural trends that are profoundly disrupting its operating methods:
the increase in waste volumes (the World Bank predicts a 70% increase by 2050) and the rise in waste management costs. At the same time, the crisis in raw material supply has settled in. We are reaching the limits of resource deposits and we are now measuring not only its financial but environmental costs.
According to the UN Environment's Global Resources Outlook 2019, half of all greenhouse gas emissions come from the extraction and processing of raw materials. Faced with the increasingly visible consequences of climate change and the accumulation of millions of tons of waste that pollute our environment, we can only see the urgency to act to develop the circularity of resources and create a sustainable supply chain. This is a necessity for the sustainability of our environment, our economy and our industry.
But we are still too far away. If we take the example of the PET plastic resin used in the manufacture of water bottles, the recycled version is more expensive than virgin PET.
For resource circularity to become effective, recycled and valorized raw materials must become more competitive than virgin raw materials. And for this to happen, the waste management sector needs to become more efficient quickly.
Faced with such a challenge, smart data - a process that enables real-time processing of the most relevant data for a business - is the perfect candidate for creating immediate impact solutions.
Providing data to enable resource traceability
The main obstacle to effective waste management and valorization is the lack of relevant indicators, or even the lack of indicators at all. There are two main factors affecting the usefulness of existing indicators: their multiplicity, resulting in the production of diffuse information; and their delivery times, which are often too long.
The solution is to produce indicators in consultation with the sector's professionals and deliver them in real time. In other words, it is the use of smart data measuring the efficiency of the industry’s actors performance in real time that will enable them to reach the objectives set by the public authorities.
This is exactly what Lixo was created to do.
A proven impact for waste collectors and MRFs
We have developed a visual recognition technology that identifies all types of waste. This data is then made available to waste management and valorization companies, directly and continuously. These data inform them of the exact composition of the waste streams they process and allow them to obtain an exhaustive and precise vision of several parameters that were previously unknown or estimated:
- The nature of the waste collected
- The purity rate of the sorted flows
- The quality of the flows to be recycled
- The recyclability potential of material batches
The acquisition of this data at the right time allows the improvement of sorting at source, the optimization of waste management costs and a better orientation of the waste towards the valorization channels.
Efficiency gains, but above all, responsibility gains
Collecting and processing more valorisable waste not only produces more recycled materials, but also prevents incineration. This is a key issue in our race to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to Gaia's latest report, How Reducing Waste is a Climate Gamechanger, every ton of plastic burned releases 1.43 tons of CO2, including the resulting energy valorisation.
Even more impressive, according to the same report, the implementation of better waste management policies on a global scale could reduce total emissions from the sector by 84%. This would prevent the emission of more than 1.4 billion tons of CO2, equivalent to the annual emissions of 300 million cars.
But every activity has an environmental cost. So does digital technology. It represents 3 to 4% of global GHG emissions. This is a relatively small share, but it is growing rapidly. According to the European Commission, if no action is taken, digital-related emissions could increase to 14% of global emissions by 2040.An exponential increase that we must control. Especially for circularity issues.
Indeed, the development of the circular economy is closely linked to the widespread use of data ensuring the traceability of goods and objects. The digital carbon footprint of the circular economy must therefore be measured, piloted and controlled to ensure that the virtuous logic of circularity applies in all its dimensions
