Good practice:

Smart Ecoisle

Door to door collection is very effective but expensive and demanding towards householders. Street side collection is very cost-efficient but the quality of the recycling materials collected is very poor.
The “Smart Ecoisle” system tries to combine the advantages of the door-to-door household waste collection with those of the proximity collection with large street containers (1.100 liters and larger).
The waste holder is identified each time he opens the street container with his electronic key (traceability of waste). Therefore, this producer responsibility scheme can charge each household in proportion to how much waste they produce (polluter pays principle). As well as in a door-to-door collection system.
Smart Ecoisle users can deliver waste when it is more convenient for them (no garbage collection with different schedules). This way collection management is almost 30% more economical as it can be organized in a very efficient way.
According to the results achieved in the City of La Spezia, where the Smart Ecoisles have been experimented since 2018, the community will enjoy a more convenient waste collection system, with an equal or greater result of the door-to-door in terms of recyclable materials differentiated and with a saving of costs for the citizens.

€ 2.570.000,00 is the estimated investment cost for 130 smart ecoisles (bins + electronic keys + collection vehicles), necessary for a city of about 20.000 inhabitants.
€ 850.000 per year the linked O&M costs.
According to La Spezia estimations, the new collection system costs almost 20% less.

The city of La Spezia (95,000 inhabitants) gradually introduced smart ecoisles since 2018.
In February 2021 reached 78.2% of separate collection, from 62.5% in 2017.
Reaching 80% of separate waste collection allows La Spezia to reduce to 9,000 t/year the waste to be taken to the incinerator and therefore to save 1.5 million per year compared to 2017, when it ended up in disposal about 17,158 tons of waste.
Overall, an average reduction of 14% of the cost for citizens has been achieved.

- Communication is strategic to be successful. It is essential to create tools of direct relationship with citizens such as WhatsApp and social network to intervene promptly
- To discourage improper behaviour it was necessary to install video surveillance systems near some Smart Ecoisle

When the waste producer is effectively made responsible for his behaviour, the desired result is achieved, that is to say, a more environmentally friendly behaviour. As with electricity, water and gas, it is also necessary for waste to insert a "meter” to implement the Polluter Pays Principle. The good practice “Smart Ecoisle” shows that even a collection system with street containers, if equipped with "intelligence", you reach the result of a smaller amount of waste to be taken to landfill or to the incinerator.
Smart Ecoisle good practice is easily transferable in all those urban contexts where anonymous street containers are still used for waste collection: investment costs are soon recovered from lower waste disposal costs.