This article originally ran in WasteDive.
As a bastion of technological innovation, it’s not surprising that the City of Austin, Texas, would have its sights set on a bold, forward-thinking goal: zero waste by 2040. “The Zero Waste Goal specifies that only items ineligible for recycling, composting, reuse, repair or donation reach our landfills,” explains Richard McHale, director of Austin Resource Recovery (ARR), the city’s solid waste and recycling collection authority.
To that end, ARR officials can point to some encouraging metrics:
- 36% higher recycling compliance than the national average.
- 44,722 tons of composting collected in 2023.
- 4 pounds of trash/day/person in 2022 vs. 5.6 pounds/day/person in 1995. That’s nearly a 30% decrease per person.
- No. 5 ranking among 13 peer cities* for diversion rate (42%).
To accelerate the pace of diversion, ARR has outlined a range of initiatives from public education to cloud-based route technology in the agency’s extensive 2023 master plan.
Why Including Multifamily Communities is Critical
Reaching the goal of zero waste is ambitious and necessary: landfill dependence is not sustainable, especially with 423,000 Austin households and counting. That’s why ARR officials are moving rapidly to implement programs that can better move the diversion needle.
Consider composting. In 2017, the city commenced curbside composting for organics in a phased, pandemic-delayed rollout, finishing residential deployment in 2021. However, more than half of Austin’s residents live in multifamily communities, which, along with commercial sources, account for 85% of the city’s landfill waste. What’s more, 37% of that waste is compostable, a potential diversion windfall.
On Oct. 1, a new city ordinance required apartments, condos, non-state dorms, assisted living centers and nursing homes with five or more dwelling units to provide convenient access to composting collection services.
“We are proud that Austin is the first city in Texas to require composting access for residents who live in multifamily communities,” McHale said in a statement.
Making Continuous Improvement the Goal
The new ordinance is a welcome move and helps plug a sizable gap in the city’s landfill diversion efforts. But it’s only one piece of a more comprehensive solution. What can be done to create new efficiencies from weekly collections? Can route distances and durations be optimized? Fuel costs reduced? Worker health and safety improved?
Early in 2024, ARR implemented a route optimization tool now deployed in more than 100 cities nationwide, including eight of the top 20 U.S. cities by population. The technology—RUBICONSmartCity from Routeware—helps ARR leaders, fleet supervisors and drivers set aside paper-based processes in favor of digital advances like:
- Service verification. Trash pickup is automatically confirmed and communicated to back-office staff in near-real time.
- Travel path editors. Supervisors and drivers can customize and optimize service routes based on veteran driver experience and real-world conditions.
- Location alerts. Rapid heads-up notifications on gate codes, VIP customers, accidents, construction and low-hanging wires.
- Exception logging. Drivers can document issues at the curb such as cart not out, contaminated bin, excess bags and more – with photos to prove it.
- Route assist. Drivers can share routes, facilitating multiple staff working the same service area.
- Pre/post trip inspections. Maintenance crews and managers have access to fast identification of vehicle health and issues through digital vehicle inspections.
Landre Wilson, ARR senior IT applications analyst and RUBICONSmartCity implementation lead, said the cloud-based software is a big hit with drivers across the city’s 300-vehicle fleet.
Wilson said it was gratifying to see drivers use the route assist tool on their tablets and get competitive about who was finishing their route first. “There was a bit of chatter on the radio and a little trash talk,” Wilson said. “We were happy to see the adoption was going pretty well that way.”
Engage and Inform
The new technology is also a hit for customer relations, Wilson explains. “We have a supervisor that adores the feature that allows you to directly email a picture from the system back to the customer,” noting that it helps directly address disputes about missing or problem carts, for example. “That features’ been really really helpful in changing citizen behavior.”
Changing long-established behaviors is at the heart of winning compliance and meeting today’s ambitious zero-waste goals. And it requires continual education and engagement. Technology has a big role to play here as well.
For example, the city launched its Austin Recycles App in March 2020, which gathers a suite of tools developed in partnership with Routeware’s digital solution ReCollect. The popular mobile app makes it easy for smartphone and tablet users to review collection day notifications and learn what to and what not to recycle or compost. The app was downloaded more than 7,000 times in the first six months. It has also saved ARR over $200,000 to date in printing and mailing costs associated with the solid waste and recycling calendar each household once received.
Technology can’t solve all solid waste, recycling and compost collection challenges. But as the Austin experience illustrates, it can go a long way by simplifying the hard work of collection, sorting and informing on the zero-waste journey.
To learn more about how to digitally transform your waste and recycling operations, visit Routeware.com/Rubicon.
*Four West Coast cities rate higher than Austin for diversion rate (in order): Los Angeles, Portland, San Diego and Seattle.
