6 Macro Trends Driving Technology Adoption in Waste And Recycling

In 2023 changes in the economic and regulatory environment for municipalities and haulers continue to push solid waste and recycling leaders to do more with less, and forward-thinking organizations are tapping technology to help them meet challenges.

A number of industry factors, both new and existing, are converging to enhance the need for technology:

• Regulations
  As of January 1, 2023, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, New York and Washington, D.C. were among the jurisdictions enforcing new recycling and waste laws, according to Waste Dive.

Regulatory changes often lead to new requirements for service delivery, diversion, resource recovery, education, and contamination, in the same way that California’s sweeping organics legislation, known as SB 1383, did last year. Cities and haulers there are using technology to efficiently and effectively add new organics collection services to their operations, capture information about what’s happening at the curb, educate people about how to properly dispose of organic materials, and report on their efforts.

• Population and service area growth
  For municipalities, population growth often translates to doing more with less and, at some point, the need to advocate for the resources required to meet increasing demand. For haulers, the growth can create similar friction.

Outdated, legacy service routes created with pen and paper, delivered to drivers via paper route sheets rather than onboard computers, become especially onerous for organizations tasked with adding households or incorporating newly acquired routes into existing driver schedules. In this instance, true route optimization software changes the game, streamlining the process required to develop efficient routes, often decreasing route costs by 25 percent, conservatively. It’s important to note that route optimization includes route sequencing but is not the same thing.

• New business opportunities
  Technology makes it possible for haulers to go after new business opportunities as they arise, grow their businesses, and increase profits. We’ll say it more than once, but legacy processes do more than slow down staff: They inhibit a hauler’s ability to grow. With tools that automate time-consuming manual processes and provide important insights into their businesses, leading haulers spend more time on strategy and less time on clunky spreadsheets.

• Mergers and acquisitions
  Quickly growing hauling enterprises need to integrate collection routes fast, with quick visibility into ROI, along with the ability to capture metrics that matter for ESG reporting. Great technology helps bring routes together efficiently and effectively and gathers data that matters, providing it back to the user in a way that’s easy to understand.

• Tightening budgets
  The right technology pays for itself over time, contributing to a balanced budget over the long term. And with fuel as second only to labor as a budget line item for haulers, making the most of every mile with routing technology just makes sense.

• Staffing issues
  With COVID-related absences still an issue in some areas, a tight labor market overall, and an ongoing driver shortage, making sure every driver is capable of successfully handling any route, anytime, is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s necessary. Smart technology for collection vehicles makes it possible. By equipping drivers with onboard computers that provide turn-by-turn directions, the training time for new drivers — or drivers to a new route — is often days instead of weeks, making cross-training possible.

In a recent LinkedIn poll by Routeware, municipalities and haulers shared a few of their most important challenges for 2023. While 55 percent said they were rolling out new initiatives, 36 percent said they needed to enhance efficiency or “do more with less.” About nine percent said they were looking to meet new demands from customers for recycling and waste diversion services.

Source: Routeware LinkedIn poll, December 2022

While digital transformation within waste organizations is nothing new, leveraging technology to scale services, comply with laws and regulations, balance budgets and increase productivity is no longer just an option. Today, smart technology is the key to forging ahead, providing excellent citizen services and maintaining a profitable bottom line.

Learn more. Connect with our specialists to find out how to technology can help solve your most pressing problems. Let’s talk!