Building the Clean Dream

In the face of rapid urbanization, the IoT is promising cities a smarter way to manage the growing challenges of waste and pollution

During the lead-up to the 2017 New Delhi Marathon, a viral video showed a runner preparing for the big race by smoking cigarettes and inhaling exhaust fumes. The video was satirical, but struck on a poignant truth about the Indian capital.

Breathing Delhi’s air is equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes in a day, according to doctors quoted at the time of the marathon. Many residents make plans for their day only after checking the city’s air quality index. Delhi’s environmental challenges are far from unique. Residents of other major cities contend with ‘garbage towers’, noise pollution and polluted waterways. Authorities have responded in various ways, including trying to purify air, closing schools to protect children and restricting cars to using roads on certain days. These examples come from the most polluted cities, but the challenge to clean things up would be familiar to many cities across the globe. With traditional measures to tackle waste and pollution falling short in the face of rapid urbanization, cities are turning to tech. Sensors and network connectivity combined with ML and AI promises authorities a smarter way to understand urban pollution and respond more precisely to the challenges it presents

In Short
Rapid urbanization is leading to mounting waste, escalating
pollution and increased stress on transport and sewerage systems.

Conventional methods of addressing these challenges are both
inefficient and counterproductive, leading cities to adopt IoT
solutions.

Successful clean city IoT deployments could be the gateway to larger
smart city deployments, by establishing credibility for IoT through
addressing critical and universal needs of residents.        

Out with the old

The world’s cities have been getting bigger. According to the United Nations (UN), the share of the world’s population living in urban areas is 57 percent today, but is set to increase to 7 out of 10 people by 2050.

Urbanization has its benefits – greater job opportunities, centralized infrastructure and a wider range of services. But the scale of change has come at an environmental cost. This includes mounting waste, escalating pollution and increased stress on transport and sewerage systems. The amount of solid waste produced by cities is forecast to grow from 1.8 billion tonnes in 2016 to 3.1 billion tonnes in 2050. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nine out of 10 people in urban areas breathe polluted air, while almost 40 percent lack access to safely managed sanitation services and adequate drinking water.

The consequences are serious. Air pollution increases risk of lung cancer, stroke, heart disease and chronic bronchitis and is one of the world’s leading fatal health risks, resulting in around 7 million deaths per year. Unclean cities are also unattractive to workers and tourists, resulting in adverse economic impacts.

Urbanization has its benefits – greater job opportunities, centralized infrastructure and a wider range of services. But the scale of change has come at an environmental cost

These are some of the reasons why those in charge of cities have long maintained efforts to keep the streets clean. Most city residents know all too well the sound of their local garbage collection service, typically heard in conjunction with birdsong in the dawn hours. Less apparent, but still there, is bulky equipment used to monitor air pollution and support interventions when pollution levels rise too high. But as city populations expand, measures like these are proving to be outdated, limited and in some cases even counter-productive to a cleaner city. Consider garbage collection, which usually involves municipal-funded garbage collectors travelling by truck to attend to every garbage bin in a given area of a city. This turns out to be highly inefficient. A study of garbage bin collection practices in New Zealand by services company Ventia found that on most occasions, half the bins on a collection route are empty, while 10 percent of the bins— those in the most popular locations—fill up again in just three or four hours. As well as the glaring inefficiencies in use of labor and resources, the data illustrates the unnecessary distances covered by garbage collection trucks to attend to empty bins, which increases levels of exhaust emissions.

When it comes to managing air quality, conventional approaches are slightly more scientific but still with drawbacks. Air quality monitoring is typically performed by large, expensive and permanently installed instruments. However, these tend to be placed at a “small number of fixed locations” and it takes time to aggregate and verify data extracted from them, according to a report by global mobile networks industry association GSMA . “London has around 100 monitoring stations … [but it is] difficult for citizens to understand the levels of pollution they experience in their daily lives, as the monitoring data is not available in real time and is very sparse,” the report said. The advent of IoT has opened the door to a radically new approach for maintaining clean cities, says Lorenzo Amicucci , Business Development Manager at Nordic Semiconductor who is leading the company’s smart city initiatives. “The technology architecture is broadly similar for a range of applications for waste, air pollution and wastewater management,” he says. “It generally involves deploying low cost sensors that can detect relevant conditions—like a full rubbish bin, changes in air quality, or deterioration of infrastructure—and then using network connectivity to convey that data to city administrators who, with help from AI and data analytics, can gain actionable insights to support proactive decisions that lead to clean outcomes for their cities".

Emptying the trash

Barcelona in Spain, which was reportedly spending 1.5 billion euros over four years on waste and recycling, believed it could reduce this amount by limiting the number of times trash bins needed emptying.

Now, connected sensors embedded in the bins communicate to city officials in real time when they are nearing capacity, limiting the number of collection trips. Other ‘smart bin’ solutions deployed around the world also use sensors to monitor gas and humidity levels in bins. Christian Wedekind , Senior Product Manager at adhoc networks GmbH , a developer of a smart waste solution based on Nordic’s nRF9160 SiP and cellular IoT connectivity, says solutions like these have reduced waste disposal emissions by 40 percent. Complementing the use of IoT technology to reduce trips, AI solutions are optimizing the routes garbage collectors take. According to NZ services company Ventia, use of these technologies reduced route time from seven-and-a-half hours to four, enabling the company to reduce its truck fleet by eight vehicles, lower its carbon footprint and minimize noise pollution in local communities

Connected sensors embedded in the bins communicate to city officials in real time when they are nearing capacity, limiting the number of collection trips

A breath of fresh air

London has long battled air pollution, with a 2017 report revealing 95 percent of its population was exposed to air pollution levels exceeding WHO limits by more than 50 percent. The emergence of low cost sensor technology saw the city embark on an air quality proof-of-concept (PoC) in Greenwich in partnership with GSMA. Shifting from the old paradigm of small numbers of fixed monitoring stations, the IoT PoC saw low cost sensors deployed on everything from people to bikes, vehicles and buildings.

“These portable IoT sensors can travel freely anywhere within Greenwich including across parks, along footpaths, pedestrian routes, major roads and side roads,” says the GSMA’s Aruna Srinivasan. “As they assess air quality in real time we expect they will provide much more granular data on the air quality in different locations throughout the day.” Like London, Delhi too is turning to the IoT. In one particularly innovative pilot, air pollution sensing devices were attached to auto rickshaws, the popular taxi-like vehicles that zip across Indian cities. The devices sent air quality readings via cellular technology to a central platform every two minutes.

While more dynamic tracking like this doesn’t reduce air pollution itself, it arms authorities and policymakers with better data to understand root causes and introduce targeted measures to combat them. These include congestion pricing in areas of high traffic, restricting or closing facilities that are heavy polluters, and even building support for longer-term initiatives such as new public transit systems. A study by McKinsey Global Institute found China’s capital, Beijing, “reduced deadly airborne pollutants by 20 percent in less than a year by closely tracking the sources of pollution and regulating traffic and construction accordingly.” Sharing real time air quality information with the public via smartphone apps also enabled individual residents to take steps to reduce negative health effects—such as prolonged journeys outside—by 15 percent.

Something in the water

Less visible than the air and solid waste around us in major cities are underground sewerage systems. While this keeps wastewater largely out of sight it can also be problematic, with issues going unnoticed until they, literally, bubble up to the surface. Many cities in Europe have combined sewerage systems, in which rainwater and wastewater flow in the same pipes. In times of heavy rainfall, systems often overflow, leading to flooding or the discharge of wastewater into rivers or canals. About 10 million cubic meters of wastewater enters Brussels’ waterways through overflows every year, according to Belgian activist group Canal it Up, which runs a campaign humorously advising Brussels residents to “hold” their urge to use the toilet if it rains.

IoT solutions are now helping cities gain visibility into sewerage issues and to manage them before they cause problems. One example is the ART Sewer wastewater and sewerage spill monitoring solution from remote monitoring solutions company Metasphere . The battery powered solution is about the size of a coffee cup and deployed below a manhole cover. Powered by Nordic’s nRF9160 SiP, the device’s sensors measure wastewater levels using radar every 15 minutes and send the data via NB-IoT or LTE-M cellular technologies to a data analytics platform. “This enables wastewater utilities to prevent wastewater spills due to high level rain events, blockages or collapsed or leaking pipes, far more effectively,” says Metasphere CEO Tim O'Brien .

Among the blockages detected are so-called ‘fatbergs’, clumps of waste bound by fat and grease, which have increasingly been found clogging sewers around the world. A trial of IoT technologies in Australia resulted in 400 blockages being cleared at environmentally high-risk sites and produced savings of $400,000 a month, according to managers on the project.

Predictive maintenance, where sensors combined with AI predict emerging maintenance needs, is another significant benefit from IoT for sewerage and drainage systems. 世界银行 estimates utilities lose 25 to 35 percent of their water due to leaks and bursts. Another benefit, realized during the pandemic, was the use of IoT technology in city sewers to detect COVID-19 hotspots via traces in wastewater, rather than waiting for advanced symptoms to become apparent in residents.

Clean city of the future

According to the Financial Times , while sensors had become increasingly affordable, “the process of collecting and analyzing data continuously across a large area [required] a prohibitively high amount of Internet connectivity, computing power and energy.

But development and uptake of LPWAN technologies has changed the game, says Nordic’s Amicucci. “Cellular technologies not only have great coverage in cities, but they are ideal for IoT applications, both those needing low power and not,” he says. “Among low power connectivity options, LTE-M supports use cases involving mobility such as monitoring the location of garbage trucks while NB-IoT suits stationary devices placed in areas with poor network coverage, such as sewer monitors.

With technology trends aligning, the opportunities and benefits from the IoT are coming into clearer view. Beyond city residents, who benefit from cleaner and healthier environments, device manufacturers and IoT solution developers also stand to gain. For instance, the sensor market for water and wastewater treatment industries alone is forecast to grow to $2 billion by 2030.

Governments and regulators will also be winners, the former better able to promote their cities as attractive destinations, and the latter more able to govern and enforce regulations due to access to better data. IoT deployments for environmental and cleanliness use cases are already underway in many countries. Globally, initiatives like the UN’s ‘United 4 Smart Sustainable Cities’ program are also supporting the use of technologies like IoT to help the transition to smart sustainable cities.

Amicucci says clean city IoT deployments are a gateway to larger smart city deployments, because they establish credibility for IoT through addressing critical and universal needs of residents – cleanliness and liveability. “Any good smart city strategy needs to put people at the core from the beginning. By focusing on how people want to live and interact with their surroundings, these solutions offer a great foundation for cities to expand to more adventurous use cases for a green and clean environment.

Any good smart city strategy needs to put people at the core. By focusing on how people want to live and interact with the city, tech solutions are a great foundation for more adventurous use cases

Happily, the emerging appetite for innovation intersects with where the technology currently stands, he says. “Connectivity is now widespread in cities, and this will only accelerate further through more protocols and standards being developed. The IoT industry is always also looking to progressively tackle new issues and problems, and I expect they will do so using a combination of current and emerging available IoT technologies such as the 5G tech, DECT NR+. “With global warming and extreme events such as floodings and fires happening more frequently, using technologies to mitigate impacts is the future,” says Amicucci. “Whether it is measuring water levels, temperatures, or the health of critical infrastructure, or preventing electricity outages, the IoT will soon become critical to cities because the cost of not addressing these challenges will be much higher than solving the problems with technology.”

This article was first published in Wireless Quarter magazine, Issue 3, 2023.