The waste sorting reaches 85% thanks to the microchip miracle

Since June last year, in different streets of Busto Arsizio, rubbish collection with microchip is being experimented and the data that Agesp disseminated are incredible. The sorted waste reached 85% – increasing by 23 percentage points compared to the average value of the city – and, at the same time, the mixed waste has been cut in half.

A data that is decidedly greater also compared to that of the other cities in which this service is being experimented.

The company defines it as a “very important result” reached “thanks to the fundamental contribution of the involved citizens”. It is about a few thousand people – among domestic and commercial customers – in the Sant’Edoardo district who for months have carried out the waste sorting by using, for the conferring of the non-recyclable fraction, light blue bin bags instead of violet bin bags. These bin bags have adhesive label in which there is a user identity microchip, in which the data are read and recorded during the collection by a special device, in order to estimate accurately the rubbish actually produced.

This procedure, propaedeutic to the quantitative and qualitative improvement of the sorted waste and the possible future introduction of the precise pricing, according to which each citizen pays what he actually produces.

But before taking this step Agesp wants to understand if and how the service is improving. Precisely because of this, a survey was distributed to the “guinea pigs” to find possible ideas for improvement. “In particular they asked them brief questions aimed to survey the general level of satisfaction of the user in respect of the collection procedure with micro-chipped bin bags,” the company explained, “as well as ask for confirmation about the interest in the supply of smaller bin bags, compared to current ones, for those that live in condominiums, and so have to keep them inside for a few days, and in the possible introduction of a new additional service for the door-to-door collection of “Healthcare absorbent products (nappies and diapers) to help users deal with this type of rubbish, considering both the size and the specific characteristics of them.”