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Mobile & Wireless
Business Case in Point
M2M keeps American Trash Management’s service on time
KORE Telematics and Aeris enable company’s 'Smart Trash' system
by Sean Buckley
If you’re looking for a vertical industry where Machine to Machine (M2M) communications is making an impact, look no further than the waste management industry.
One waste management provider that has integrated M2M into its operations is American Trash Management (ATM).
Not to be confused with the role of a waste hauler, ATM provides its customer base — one that consists of everything from large U.S. and international retailers and phone companies to local schools — a means to better handle the ongoing waste and scrap coming out of their respective businesses.
“We use the term trash on purpose because it means something of little or no value so it includes wasteand historical products,” said Scott Brown, president of American Trash Management.
A key element to deal with its diverse client’s trash management issues is what American Trash Management’s is its ‘SmartTrash’ system.
This so-called Smart Trash system consists of a device that’s installed on or near a customer’s trash compactor or baler control panel. (see Figure 1.)
 Figure 1. ATM Data Base. Source: American Trash Management
Smart Trash then time stamps, records and analyzes compactor activity: energy use, safety door switches, and pickup and return. From there, the data is wirelessly relayed back to ATM’s data center where it is analyzed to make decisions on whether to dispatch a truck to empty the compactor or baler (compacting cardboard and plastic).
“Our Smart Trash system measures the functions of those machines and sends information back to us that a bale has been made or the compactor is full,” Brown said. “We can then make the determination is compactor full, and if it’s not its data we use to predict when it will be full because we need to order the pickup which typically takes about 24 hours.”
Consultative relationship
Initially using Sprint and Verizon Wireless as the underlying backbone technology for its Smart Trash system, ATM found that the offering it got from KORE Telematics, an M2M provider, was a better fit.
In addition, ATM announced last December a partnership with fellow M2M provider Aeris. Aeris is providing ATM with an additional source of connectivity and management for its Smart Trash system.
ATM’s experience is not all that uncommon in the burgeoning M2M services market.
While wireless operators are certainly making progress in targeting vertical markets with M2M-based services, some vertical market businesses find that M2M-centric operators such as KORE and Aeris can often provide not only connectivity but also professional services including product qualification, application development and even back office applications.
“The service we’re using through KORE is a continuation of the same service we had been using from Sprint and Verizon,” said Brown. “We had not been using Sprint for quite a while, which is why we were interested in KORE’s Over The Air (OTA) offering.”
Reliability is key
To maintain trash management services for its clientele, network downtime is not an option for ATM. Not surprisingly, ATM required a wireless network solution that could consistently support its ‘SmartTrash’ system.
“We have to have something that works extremely reliably,” Brown said. “If we’re going to do this, you can’t go dark and have the device fail and the network go down because if you need to clean up waste behind a department store and you don’t know what amount that you have there, you’re in trouble.”
ATM has plenty of experience dealing with wireless reliability issues.
Since being founded in 1990, ATM has deployed everything from AMPS, CDPD, GSM and next-gen CDMA technologies.
Although he’s not one to knock GSM — ATM continues to use GSM as part of its service — Brown found that CDMA technology and its packet-based nature in certain instances can be more reliable than GSM.
“Both of them work well,” he said. “If you get into a more rural situation with GSM, the cell sites have to be closer. We find the coverage in a rural setup to not be as good as CDMA.”
Brown added that what also puts CDMA in ATM’s favor is the fact that unlike GSM-based technology, which is an overlay packet-based network, CDMA is packet-based out of the box.
“We found initially that it was easier for us to get up and running on packet data because we originally wrote our own IP stack and it was easier to do that with CDMA than it was with GSM initially,” he said.
A cost register
While ATM’s system is called "Smart Trash," Brown believes the purpose of the system is that of a "cost register."
“Whereas a retailer has a cash register at the front to measure what’s going out the front, our smart trash device measures what goes out the back of the business,” he said. “This measurement allows us to turn their trash production to a just-in-time system.”
Instead of having trash be picked up on a schedule of every morning at 8:00, the truck might show up every 1.7 days.
There are three results that come out of a just-in-time trash management system: reduced truck traffic, reduced greenhouse gases by getting more trucks off the road, and lower overall cost of managing the trash.
 Figure 2. Smart Trash™ system benefits. Source: American Trash Management
Of course, Smart Trash management system is not completely automated. ATM has internal staff that correlates incoming data emanating from the customer’s site in 15-minute intervals. From there, these technicians can determine whether to dispatch a truck to collect the trash.
“A human being has to be involved,” Brown said. “There are just too many variables that can go wrong. It’s not just the measurement issue. You also have to dispatch a driver in a truck and make sure they show up, and if they don’t your just-in-time trash management system will not work.”
From a customer point of view, ATM wants to get its clients to look at the total costs of operations in terms of waste and scrap.
Since Smart Trash is a cost savings service, a car manufacturer could see a typical payback of days, while a school would see a payback within two to three months.
On average, ATM said its service could save any company about 25 percent on trash management.
Case in point is U.S.-based, largest woman-owned supermarket chain, Raley’s Supermarkets. The supermarket chain gave ATM one mandate: "Get us out of the waste business."
“They told us they did not want to make any more waste,” Brown said. “We told them that that’s impossible since something is going to show up on your loading dock that you never planned on.”
Given that goal, ATM took on the task of categorizing Raley’s overall waste, including organic waste.
Once ATM had gotten accurate measurements and right-sized Raley’s trash (i.e., getting rid of pickups it did not need) via the SmartTrash system, it started to look at other things it could take out of its waste that could further reduce the supermarket chain’s costs.
Out of that exercise, ATM found a big contributor to the waste cycle was old food products that are out of date and leftover produce trim. Traditionally, this waste was either thrown out with the rest of a store’s garbage or made into compost.
Instead of taking the route of creating compost — a process that’s not only expensive but creates environmental pollutants — ATM advised Raley’s to use its leftover produce trim to make cattle feed.
“Raley’s not only solved an environmental problem, but they reduced trash costs even more because we got a substantial portion of waste out of their waste treatment,” Brown said. “Using our Smart Trash device, we have the data to show how to reduce their pickups even more and we’re feeding cattle that end up even being sold in their stores.”
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