

Gates: To date, governments have been tremendously supportive of technology innovation, but change has been slow. GT: How can cities and government officials support IoT technologies and companies like Compology in terms of policy and infrastructure? Compology partners with waste haulers and governments to develop programs that work for all constituents. GT: Where have you launched Compology and what government customers are using your cloud service?

By using rugged sensors and software, Compology enables new processes. Gates: The waste management industry has embraced the use of technology to provide incremental improvement to the same processes that have been used for the last 100 years. GT: From a tech perspective, how modernized is the waste management industry, and in what service areas does it need the most help? Boston, New York and Pasadena, Calif., have already deployed a similar system for their smaller sidewalk trash bins, and citizens are starting to see IoT garbage receptacles - like the soon-to-be released Bruno Smart Can - on the market as well.Ĭompology Co-founder Jason Gates: Ben and I met in high school and collaborated on a number of projects over the years before starting Compology. The IoT startup is part of a national waste management trend in cities to balance costs through efficiency. Dubbed WasteOS, the operating system behind the sensors delivers real-time percentages of dumpster capacity and historical usage information of these city-owned assets. The company has created sensors that detect garbage levels in city trash bins and notify waste removal trucks when it’s time to collect. San Francisco-based Compology, co-founded by entrepreneurs Ben Chehebar and Jason Gates in 2012, claims it can reduce waste collection costs by as much as 40 percent with its Internet of Things (IoT) cloud solution. The predicament is concerning for cities, especially in developing countries where budgets are already tight.īut one startup hopes to help. With loads of trash increasing, disposal costs also are rising - the World Bank further predicts that by 2025, global garbage collection expenses will skyrocket by 83 percent, from $205 billion a year in 2010 to $375 billion by 2025. Global trash production has risen to more than 3.5 million tons, according to the World Bank, which estimates that will hit the 6 million mark by 2025. The amount of garbage in cities is growing.
