MIT Program Tracks Garbage in NYC, Seattle

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has launched a new program that calls on New York and Seattle residents to voluntarily tag their trash. Known as Trash Track, the program will distribute electronic  garbage tags in order to track the journey of discarded products through the waste stream.

The tags will be wireless location markers and will be attached at random to thousands of products in the two cities. The system will record not only the current location of a product, but it will also track how long it has been in the waste stream.

MIT's program is a step forward in driving up the national recycling rate. Photo: Amazonaws.com

In addition to analyzing the data, MIT will make the information available to the public in exhibits at the Architectural League in New York and the Seattle Public Library. These exhibits will begin in September.

“Trash is one of today’s most pressing issues—both directly and as a reflection of our attitudes and behaviors,” says Professor Carlo Ratti, head of the MIT SENSEable City lab. “Our project aims to reveal the disposal process of our everyday objects, as well as to highlight potential inefficiencies in today’s recycling and sanitation systems.”

One of the reasons New York was chosen as a pilot city is that the Green NYC Initiative has set a goal of increasing the city’s recycling to near 100 percent by 2030. MIT’s researchers believe that tracking waste is a step toward a 100 percent recycling rate.

Both New York and Seattle currently offer two of the more comprehensive curbside recycling programs, which includes service for apartment buildings and laws that ban the Big Five (aluminum cans, glass bottles, paper, plastic bottles and tin cans) from the garbage.

The Trash Track program is also in talk’s to provide tags for waste in London. It will start by monitoring approximately 3,000 pieces of garbage.