Food Waste Trucks Outfitted with GPS Technology

A city in China is using GPS technology to address a problem with illegal cooking oil. They are hoping that a new computerized system will help to eliminate this long-standing issue.

Illegal Oil

The city of Wuhan, China is famous for its cuisine, much of which utilizes cooking oil. All of this cooking generates a large amount of food waste, approximately 1,100 tons each day. The waste is dumped into the area’s lakes and rivers, which is obviously quite harmful to the waterways. In addition, some enterprising individuals collect the used cooking oil and recycle it to use again. This oil, called gutter oil, is dangerously contaminated and no longer suitable for use with food.

A New System

To address this problem, the city is instituting a system of collection and processing of food waste. When the law takes effect on December 1^st, all restaurants over 80 square meters in size will be required to have their food waste collected by an approved company. They will be issued specific garbage cans that they will be required to use. Once collected, the waste will be taken to one of five waste treatment plants. Each of these facilities can process up to 200 tons of food waste each day. Here the waste will be turned into methane and compost.

The Technology Side

One of the challenges of implementing a new system of this magnitude is compliance. To address this, the city has outfitted every food waste truck with a computerized system utilizing GPS technology. These features enable the trucks to collect GPS and weight data at each pickup. The weight data enables tracking of a restaurant’s waste over time. If there is a sudden decline, it is likely that the restaurant is improperly disposing of its waste. Besides coordinating the location of the pickups, the GPS device also enables the central office to keep track of where the trucks are and quickly locate any particular vehicle.

Since it expected that the program will cover only about 60% of the city’s food waste, it will not immediately solve all of the improper disposal problems. However, the use of GPS technology is a step in the right direction toward improving the quality of both the city’s food supply and its waterways.

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Food Waste Trucks Outfitted with GPS Technology