City of Canterbury Bankstown’s revolutionary technology to reduce contamination in household recycling bins has been honoured with a national Excellence in Innovation Award.

The Council-first Artificial Intelligence (AI) program in garbage trucks, which has proven effective in automatically detecting contamination in recycling bins, was awarded the ‘Outstanding Council Project’ category at the 2023 National Waste Conference.

The award recognises a local council who has developed and implemented an outstanding waste management project during the 2020-22 calendar years.

Canterbury-Bankstown Mayor Bilal El-Hayek said he was thrilled to see Council’s efforts to improve waste management and resource recovery recognised at a national level.

“The award is a testament to the incredibly hard work and collaboration between Council’s Waste and Cleansing and Sustainable Future teams to close the loop on waste,” Mayor El-Hayek said.

“The program has been a real game changer for Council, transforming the way we educate the community around recycling.”

Speaking at the conference last month, Council’s Waste Systems Coordinator Troy Leedham said the program was developed to tackle the issue of residents putting the wrong items in the recycling bin.

“We installed cameras in our trucks to take photos of what’s tipped into the truck, and we run those photos through AI which is trained to detect things that shouldn’t be in the recycling,” Mr Leedham said.

“After initial testing, it was progressed to a fully functioning AI that scans every bin emptied into our recycling trucks. The AI provides reports on contamination types, locations and heat maps.”

“The data means Council can tailor its education programs depending on the type of contamination occurring in specific areas.”

The AI program was developed as part of Council’s $2.1 million technology-led Closing the Loop on Waste program.

To learn more about Council’s Closing the Loop on Waste program, visit cb.city/ClosingLoop