Life cycle assessment of IoT system inSödertälje – The case of textile waste collection and the municipality’s recycling stations

Internet of things (IoT) is expected to transform the way we live, work, and learn. Using IoT can be a game-changer for municipalities to move towards sustainability. Within the Vinnova financed project, The inclusive, sustainable, and connected society, the municipality wants to explore how IoT can enable route optimization and placement planning for increased operational efficiency. The aim of these environmental studies is to enhance the knowledge of the environmental benefits of IoT systems in three parts of the waste collection systems and services provided in the municipality of Södertälje: Waste collection in the city centre (Telge Återvinning), Textile collection (Human Bridge) and Recycling stations (Telge Återvinning). The LCA results for waste collection in the city centre are documented in Chiew & Brunklaus (2021); while the main LCA results and conclusions for textile collection (part 2) and recycling stations (part 3) are summarized in this report. The results for all three types of waste collection system show that the implementation of the IoT system is quite low (<1%). In this study, the climate impacts of both textile waste collection and recycling stations services per year were identified with LCA. By using the actor analysis, we found that in both the textile waste collection and the recycling stations services, the major climate impacts come from citizens, e.g., in the case of the textile waste collection service. The climate impact of transportation of the citizens to the textile station is 36%, followed by the plastic or paper bags from the citizens is 22% of the total impact of the textile waste, while the transportation of citizens to the recycling stations is even higher, such as 70% of the total impact of the recycling station system. The textile collection and recycling stations showed that citizen’s choice has huge impact on the CO2 emission. Re-used and recycled textiles, instead of incinerating can save up to 23-44kg CO2 per kg of new textile produced. The recycling stations collects almost 9kt of waste, which are consumer products (e.g. bicycles, furniture, electronic devices and car decks). Re-used products can save between 100kg CO2 eq per bicycle up to 300kg CO2 eq per electronic devices, such as electric tools or laptop computers, as well as 28kg CO2 eq per car decks. On the other hand, the service provided by Södertälje has a huge influence on the citizens choice. The “rullande återvinning” (rolling service), in which Telge Återvinning arranged trucks to collect bulky waste closer to the citizen can reduce the emission that is caused by the citizen transportation. In addition, the IoT system installed in the recycling station can provide good information to the citizen to avoid congestion time and paying for an empty visit due to long queue in the recycling stations. The service provided by Human Bridge and Telge Återvinning can be improved. However, both have already started to implement green choices. The environmental choices already made by Human Bridge (part 2) include the choice of thinner and recycled plastic bags and the choice of green electricity. The environmental choices already made by Telge Återvinning (part 3) include the choice of transportation (HVO instead of diesel) and the choice of green electricity. The recommendations for the future could include better service for the citizens (rolling service) and setting requirements on the service provider, such as in the textile collection (fossil-free transport)