Comment by alexaholic
16 hours ago
I live in the EU, where I have five separate waste streams: glass, paper, plastic/metal, RVM plastic, and general trash. They all fill at different rates, while the collection schedule is essentially nondeterministic. The only reliable signal is that they arrive at 6 a.m. sharp in trucks specifically engineered to maximize acoustic output.
My solution is similarly overengineered: a vision system combined with an olfactory system feeds into a biological neural network, which monitors the bins and determines when intervention is required.
The neural network is annoyingly power-hungry, occasionally unreliable, and has yet to support OTA firmware updates. I also have a Home Assistant as a backup for when the neural network fails. It provides a gentle nudge that perhaps the bins need taking out.
Shocking, I know.
> The only reliable signal is that they arrive at 6 a.m. sharp in trucks specifically engineered to maximize acoustic output.
This gave me a chuckle. It seems almost every where in the world this is true. Ofcourse it is quiet outside around that time, amplifying the effect, but I am always amazed why loud things always need to happen so early. Maybe I should become a morning person, but prefer dark, silent nights for concentration.
> It seems almost every where in the world this is true.
The metropolitan area near me have had electric trash trucks for some years (https://www.sustainabletruckvan.com/renault-trucks-clean-cit...), which when you walk near them, are shockingly silent, for how large and bulky they still are. I'm not sure how many been deployed, the "old" ones are still all over the place, and noisy as everywhere else, but surely these "Renault Trucks E-Tech D and D Wide electric trucks" they talk about must have been deployed elsewhere too?
In my area half the issue is cars being parked on the way, which is why the truck has to approach the bins in reverse, which is particularly loud.
The other half is buildings being spaced 7m apart, because that's the minimum allowable at this height. The echo is enormous.
That being said it's still more tolerable than the people absolutely punching it through our 30km/h street with their modified exhausts and windows rolled down - as if the point for them was to lose hearing as fast as possible.
> I live in the EU, where I have five separate waste streams: glass, paper, plastic/metal, RVM plastic, and general trash.
In Toronto, Canada (and Ontario generally?) we use single-stream recycling:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-stream_recycling
So we have organic waste (food scraps, etc; green bin), recycling (blue), and everything else ("garbage"; black). Organics/green gets picked up every week, blue and black alternate (always on the same day: so one week green+blue, next week green+black).
For hazardous stuff you take it to a depot or wait for a city community event nearby:
* https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/recycling-organics-...
This past year the provincial government made it so that municipalities do not have to handle recycling anymore, but it is now the responsibility of the manufacturers ("producer responsibility model")
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_in_Canada#Ontario
* https://www.circularmaterials.ca/what-is-epr/
Is there a reason why all these separate streams are used where you live?
I see several reasons listed in the first link in your comment.
LOL, you’re taking about OpenClaw, right? The neural network not only takes out the bins but also starts posting on HN
No, he's referring to using the human body, brain, and nose to figure out when to take the trash out to the street, with Home Assistant giving a reminder.
I know, just LOL. My “home assistant” would frown at me for the “home assistant” epitheton.
Just 5? Lucky you, here (depending on how you count) we're doing 13 fractions.
Please elaborate and educate us. I might be missing a stream but where I live we have three. But most people ignore any rules AND complain when costs go up.
That’s nuts. Where is ‘here’?
Sounds like Switzerland - different bin for each colour of glass - at least in Zürich.
1 reply →
> The neural network is annoyingly power-hungry,
I don't think it's power hungry at all! Benchmark it's energy use against SOTA, you will be surprised.
Key word is "annoyingly" One plugs into the wall and only requires maintenance(electrical bill) once a month. The efficient one permanently attached to you requires maintenance several times a day.