The role of QR codes in city waste management

How QR codes help solve the problem with trash

Many countries have long passed waste collection, sorting, and recycling laws. But launching an effective waste management system takes time and effort. 

On the one hand, some people still have to learn to separate food waste from other types of garbage. On the other hand, tracking the work of responsible municipal services might be challenging for the authorities. To solve these problems, you can create QR codes - two-dimensional matrix codes consisting of black and white squares. 

It's easy to add content to interactive codes in various formats and access it directly from your smartphone. That is why QR codes are suitable for monitoring waste collection and sorting. Let's look at how the authorities can use the QR code generator to manage city waste effectively.

Ideas for QR codes to control waste collection

Any system can fail, but tracking and fixing problems in time is essential. We are talking about the quality work of public utility employees responsible for garbage disposal. You should generate QR codes for all houses to prevent route violations in a particular district. 

Every QR code must contain a unique household identifier. Before picking up the garbage, a municipal employee scans it, making an entry with the date and number of the house in the database. At the same time, the system keeps a record of homes where they did not scan codes (which means - the garbage was not taken out).

Later the city authorities can figure out which households were missed and identify the employees assigned to these households. As a result, if you create QR codes for garbage sorting, you eventually improve the quality of work of the responsible services. 

India launched this system in 2018. In addition to the possibility of effectively tracking waste collection, QR codes have increased citizens' satisfaction. Communal services started better fulfilling their obligations and even warned residents about the change in the work schedule in advance.

QR codes for waste collection points

Local authorities can organize special points on the streets to ease the collection of sorted waste. For example, you install two containers (for food waste and everything else) and create QR codes online for each container. People will scan QR codes on their garbage bags via a QR scanner at the point, and the scanner, recognizing the garbage type, will open the appropriate container.

This idea was successfully implemented in China in 2017, introducing the "Intelligent Waste Recycling System" based on QR code technology. Waste collection points gave additional incentives for the citizens - the so-called "green points", which they could exchange for discounts on various goods at certain outlets.