AI Deployed To Manage Bins In French City

Since July 2020, 200 bins that collect waste from 13 waste disposal centres in the French city of Toulouse have been equipped with embedded artificial intelligence. SUEZ manages the collection. Under test since 2019, the ffly4u solution has been deployed with the objectives of reducing fuel consumption, optimizing skip flows and reducing costs by optimizing collection resources. The partnership between ffly4u and Suez started at the end of 2019 through a Proof Of Concept trial on one waste disposal centre and around 10 bins. Encouraged by the success of the solution, SUEZ and Decoset, a regional municipal waste management company in France, deployed the ffly4u solution in July 2020 in the 13 waste disposal centres in the region of Toulouse. The connected devices attached to the bins give SUEZ real-time visibility of the bin’s filling rate, its location at and off the dock, and in the waste disposal centres and in transit. The operational teams have precise knowledge of the bins’ loading/unloading phases, i.e. on the truck or on the ground, and they are also notified in case of extended idle time. In a highly urbanized area that attracts more than 10,000 new inhabitants every year, digitization optimizes the planning, filling and transport of skips and allows a five percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) linked to waste transportation. The ffly4u innovation relies on the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in a device with low energy consumption, that will run for four to six years. The solution, “Edge AI Low Power”, launched in 2018 by ffly4u, is also used to track assets in the cable/fiber, trailers, Returnable Transit Packaging and aeronautics sectors. “The ffly4u solution, which has been successfully tested in the region of Toulouse, contributes significantly to the digitization of our businesses,” said Jean-Christophe Didio, regional director of waste recycling at SUEZ. “The SUEZ group and the ffly4u team are currently discussing the possibility of extending this solution to other areas”. “Today, it is clear that the collection of raw data from basic sensors, such as geolocation or temperature, is not enough,” said Rodolphe Henry, sales director Europe at ffly4u. “Industrial players are looking for real data specific to their businesses”.