Don’t underestimate the power of garbage: In 1968, when 7,000 New York City sanitation workers went on strike for eight days, Mayor John Lindsay was met with such a mounting crisis in piles of trash that he called in the National Guard to haul it away. To this day, political careers can still be made or broken in the time it takes garbage trucks to clear the streets after a blizzard.
But what if garbage took care of itself? What if dumpsters could actually tell sanitation workers when they were full?
That’s the idea behind Enevo, a company that makes sensors to alert people to when garbage cans are reaching their limits. As of last week, the Finnish company has raised $11 million in investments. It’s installed some 5,000 sensors in pilot programs between Europe and the United States and has major plans for expansion on the East Coast.
Garbage can sensors don’t just prevent streets from getting smelly, Enevo CEO Fredrik Kekalainen explains. The purpose of having an Internet of trash is also to prevent wasted fuel in needless garbage collection rounds; by Enevo’s calculation, some pilot programs have saved waste management fleets up to 40% in fuel costs that would have otherwise been spent picking up near-empty dumpsters. Decreased fuel use also means decreased emissions, which would be critical in cities where fumes from diesel trucks contribute to high asthma rates.