CLOUD BASED IoT-ENABLED SOLID WASTE MONITORING SYSTEM FOR SMART AND CONNECTED COMMUNITIES

Indiscriminate disposal of solid waste is a major issue in urban centers and it poses a serious threat to healthy living of the citizens. Timely access to reliable information on the level of solid waste at different locations within the city will help both the local authorities and the citizens to effectively manage this menace. In this paper, an intelligent solid waste monitoring system is developed using Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing technologies. Waste containers are strategically situated within the communities and the fill level of solid waste in each of the containers is detected using ultrasonic sensors. The sensor data is transmitted to an IoT cloud platform, ThingSpeak, via a Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) communication link. At different fill levels, the system is designed to send appropriate notification message (in form of tweet) to alert relevant authorities and concerned citizen(s) for necessary action. Also, the fill level is monitored on ThingSpeak in real-time. The system performance shows that the proposed solution may be found useful for efficient waste management in smart and connected communities.