The City Council of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria installs 600 volumetric sensors in containers to optimize the collection of glass, paper and plastic.

The devices, which will be integrated into the Intelligent Waste Management platform, optimize the resources of the service by knowing the actual state of the load of the deposits.
The system reduces environmental impact and transport costs by optimizing waste collection routes.
The action, included in the LPA Blue Intelligence initiative, has a budget of 106,623.36 euros, co-financed through the European Union's ERDF funds.

The City Council, through the areas of Technological Innovation and Cleaning, has begun to install 600 volumetric sensors in containers for the selective collection of glass, paper and plastic located in the Vegueta, Cono Sur and Tafira districts. This action is part of the modernization process of the cleaning service that is being developed through the Intelligent Waste Management platform.

These devices will allow optimizing human and material resources, as well as reducing the environmental impact. The cleaning service, through this intelligence system implemented with the LPA Inteligencia Azul initiative, will be able to plan routes according to the loading situation of each of the depots, thus reducing the carbon footprint and making it more sustainable.

With this intervention, the City Council expands the smart waste collection system, one of the main projects of the LPA Inteligencia Azul strategy, which has an investment of close to one million euros. Nearly a thousand garbage cans and containers for selective and fractioned collection have already been sensorized in the municipality to calibrate the filling levels in real time.

The devices installed in the selective collection garbage cans are state-of-the-art, allowing two-way communication between the sensor itself and the Intelligent Waste Management platform. Thus, the system can be configured remotely to obtain hourly information on the volume of waste and to send at least two reports per day to know the loading status.

In this way, the cleaning service can distinguish in the same day the hours of fast filling and the hours of slower filling where the frequency of measurement is less critical. With this information, the area will define the waste collection routes in a more efficient and sustainable way.

The sensors also have a system for sending alerts based on filling and emptying thresholds, and an accelerometer that detects in real time if a different displacement from the initial one is taking place. In addition, they collect information in order to extract statistics.

The devices will be equipped with an enclosure with flame-retardant properties to avoid possible incidents due to high temperatures. To withstand the conditions of the environment where they will be installed, they also have a degree of protection IP66 or higher, which means that they are dust-tight and protected against water.

These sensors must operate autonomously using batteries with a minimum life of five years, in addition to being equipped with alarms that warn when the batteries are about to run out. Another feature is that they can be configured according to the type of waste (glass, light packaging and cardboard and paper).

11 projects and 8 million investment

LPA Inteligencia Azul is a complete plan with 11 projects and 8 million of investment that will generate a GDP of more than 12 million euros, improving the operation of public services, favoring the inventory of public services and the use of the waste management system.12 million, improving the functioning of public services, favoring the digital inventory and the increasingly efficient and effective management of administrative services, making it possible to optimize municipal resources and consolidate their daily work in increasingly sustainable parameters.