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Green Government

UK university curbs waste with social media

By Johanna Morden | 17 June 2011

Facebook and camera phones are being used by the Newcastle University, an academe in north-east England with an almost 20,000-strong student base, to raise awareness on garbage recycling among students.

The university’s computer scientists have enlisted five student households to join a pilot initiative that entails the placement of a small sensor attached to a camera phone in the participating households’ kitchen bins, called “BinCam.”

The BinCam takes a photograph every time the garbage bin lid slams shut.

This photograph is automatically uploaded to the BinCam Facebook page with house members and other BinCam users able to see the garbage disposed, as well as leave comments and exchange recycling tips.

Graphs are also drawn to chart the recycling performance of each household.

The project is designed to monitor and minimise waste and to raise consciousness on the upsides of recycling.

“Normally when you throw something away and the lid goes down you forget about it – out of sight out of mind – and that’s the end of it,” said Anja Thieme, project leader and a postgraduate student in human-computer interaction at the university. “But the reality could not be further from the truth – waste has a massive environmental impact.”

“By taking a photograph and uploading it to Facebook, the idea is that we create a platform for self-reflection - a permanent reminder,” added Thieme.

The project has produced successful initial results, with the bins being emptied fewer times as more households recycle garbage just within two weeks from the date of launch.

The project is a collaboration between the School of Computing Science and Culture Lab at Newcastle University and the universities of Lincoln and Duisburg-Essen.

By the new academic year in September, BinCam will be rolled out in more student houses.

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