The Trash We Make: AI Solutions For A Cleaner World
Tags: Machine Learning, Sdgs, Tech For Good, Environment, AI

This article is part 1/2 of the Omdena series of articles ‘The Trash We Make’, which summarizes the work carried out in the Omdena Challenge in partnership with Trash Out.

The Omdena TrashOut challenge identified three tasks that aim to map illegal dumps and help citizens recycle more. The first, build AI models that identify patterns causing illegal dumpsites, predict potential dumpsites, and avoid such dumpsites. The second part of the challenge was developing a Classifier to predict which recycling category a trash item belongs to. The third answers the question, how to encourage TrashOut app users to provide accurate and current information on new, continuing, or cleared illegal dumpsites.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is getting better and better at making our lives more efficient and convenient in many ways. It has even been called the “The new electricity” of our generation by Andrew Ng. Thanks to AI, new business models have emerged with which our economies have expanded and wealth has grown. On one hand, we are reinventing healthcare with better diagnosis and increasing food production via automation, monitoring pests, and crops. On the other hand, humanity is affecting the climate and, consequently, experiencing more natural disasters, witnessing the spread of diseases not seen before, and dealing with unprecedented biodiversity shortage. Our population is still struggling with a lack of food, proper shelter, and clean and sufficient water for their daily needs. We can and should do more with technology such as AI in areas that truly count for the sustainable development of society.

Omdena has taken on this task of letting loose AI on areas that are needed for the betterment of humanity. The community is composed of 1350 collaborators from 84 countries and, through bottom-up collaboration, has completed 25 impactful projects with organizations, preventing abuse and assault of vulnerable people, helping to build tools for natural disaster management, predicting climate change, predicting gang and gun violence and keeping the world a cleaner place. The AI teams are part-time volunteers who are passionate about using AI for social impact and the sake of humanity. They come from all walks of life, students, experienced professionals, and those that are wanting to use technology for socio-economic impact.

Let us step back and take a quick look at how much waste we are generating and what is the current state of waste production.

Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management up to the year 2050, Source: Worldbank.org

According to the World Bank, most of the world’s waste is sent to landfills, dumped into oceans, or being incinerated, even though a high majority of daily consumables are recyclable. This is primarily due to the high level of contaminants found in recyclables, making previously clean material practically unrecyclable and financially unmarketable.

By 2030, the world is expected to generate 2.59 billion tons of waste annually (By 2050, waste generation across the world is expected to reach 3.40 billion tons, What a waste!. The biggest producer of waste is North America and countries with a high GDP. And what are we doing with it? Globally, almost 40 % of waste is disposed of in landfills. About 19% gets recycled and composted. A key thing to note that globally 33% of waste is still openly dumped. Thanks to the effort of TrashOut and Omdena, efforts are being made to reduce this number and to help citizens recycle more through the use of data-driven technology. TrashOut’s concern is both legal and illegal landfills. Biodegradation (a mixture of bio and other waste) produces methane, which is a greenhouse gas that has a severe contribution to climate change. It is estimated that dumpsites will account for 8–10% of the global Greenhouse Gas emissions by 2025.

We all generate waste; its management should be our Business!

TrashOut is an environmental project which aims to map all illegal dumps around the world and help citizens recycle more. TrashOut allows users to locate and monitor illegal dumpsites with an app. Helps users find the nearest recycling centers or bins, encourages them to join local green organizations, takes part in cleanup actions, and provides users with reading eco-news and reports. By the way, TrashOut is an Official App of World Cleanup Day!

TrashOut App

Omdena collaborators took on a challenge to build models on illegal dumpsites to see if there are any patterns that can help us understand what causes the illegal dumpsites. Some of the questions addressed in this project were: How can we predict potential dumpsites, and how can we avoid the formation of dumpsites? One can also nudge consumers to recycle in the correct way. Why? An item’s ability to recycle is “damaged” if it gets contaminated with other items, hence items go to dumps instead of recycling centers. In the second task of this project, the Omdena team implemented a new feature in the TrashOut App, with the goal of classifying if a shopping product is sustainable and environmentally friendly and to which recycling bin it belongs. Finally, a third part of the project has taken on the task of keeping the database of dumps built from the TrashOut app be updated to serve NGO’s local governments and interested parties to make cleanups more efficient. In what follows, we briefly discuss each of these tasks.