Grantee Research Project Results
Real Time Recycling Inventory Aggregation and Management Software
EPA Contract Number: 68HERC23C0026Title: Real Time Recycling Inventory Aggregation and Management Software
Investigators: Simpson, Alando
Small Business: City of Roses Disposal and Recycling, Inc.
EPA Contact: Richards, April
Phase: I
Project Period: December 1, 2022 through May 31, 2023
Project Amount: $98,887
RFA: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I (2023) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: SBIR - Water , SBIR - Homeland Security , SBIR - Sustainability , SBIR - Air and Climate
Description:
Our product will incentivize source separation of construction and demolition waste by capturing true weights of recoverable products and adjusting disposal pricing based upon percentage of recyclability. This holistic inventory aggregation and management system will allow material recovery facilities (MRFs) to accurately evaluate inbound waste by weight and track recovered materials inventories. Additionally, using a FIFO inventory tracking system, our product will confirm the sale of recovered materials to end markets and allow waste generators to track the end market destination of their recovered materials.
The software, Real Time Recycling Inventory Management (RTR), will resolve inaccurate and subjective waste reporting. Industry standard recycling reporting is generated by a visual inspection of arriving waste, prior to any processing. This is problematic for two primary reasons:
- Visual grading of weights is inherently subjective. Through internal studies, we have determined that visual grading is roughly 70% accurate. Our software, in conjunction with adequate scales, will return up to 99% accurate results.
- Because visual grading is completed prior to processing, there is no guarantee that recoverable commodities are sorted and sold to outlets other than landfills and incinerators. Our software will only assign grading percentages to recovered material, ensuring accurate reporting of percentages of waste sent for landfill disposal.
MRFs, the target customer, will be incentivized to utilize our software by charging waste generators a premium for recycling reporting implementing RTR software. Additional financial incentives include the possibility of offering variable disposal pricing to waste generators, based upon percentage of recyclable material in disposed waste. The pricing model will encourage further source separation of waste as recoverability will be maximized with fewer products in the waste stream. Heavily mixed waste loads will be harder to sort and limit the recovered percentage.
Successful implementation of this software in the construction and demolition waste recovery sphere can be easily translated to the residential recycling system. We anticipate the opportunity to license the software to MRFS serving all components of the recycling system.
This project will directly address Objective B, increase of collection and improvement of materials management infrastructure, and Objective C, reduction of contamination in the recycled materials stream, of the National Recycling Strategy. The software will provide accurate recovery data capture in line with potential new reporting requirements enacted by the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act, unanimously passed by the senate and likely to be written into law by the end of 2022.
Progress and Final Reports:
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.