To track garbage, devices being trashed
| July 16, 2009 | 7:29 AM
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Garbage in, garbage out.
But if you knew where your trash was going, would you have some shopping doubts?
Waste researchers at MIT hope so. Gloved up — and hopefully wearing clothespins on their noses — they rolled out a project this week called Trash Track. They study is meant to get people thinking about what we throw away and how much energy it takes to get rid of it.
No detail has been discarded in the plan. Volunteers in New York, Seattle and London will allow their garbage to be marked with electronic devices called “trash tags.” Then the researchers will monitor about 3,000 everyday objects in the trash, from plastic water bottles to disposable razor blades, as they wind their through the disposal system.
Frankly, our wastefulness smells. So the team wants to sniff for more info on the patterns and cost of urban disposal, and root out the trashy effects on the environment — especially from all of the single-use junk we keep buying.
Starting in September, the public will be able to watch the migration patterns of the tagged trash online, if you can believe it. And exhibits will dig into the research, too, at the Seattle Public Library and the Architectural League of New York.
For environmentalists, the results could be crushing.
Read more at cnet.com.
electronic tags, garbage, london, monitoring, new york, seattle, tracking, trash
