John Trotti

I am unabashedly in favor of exploring the possible role of technology in meeting the challenges facing solid-waste management activities, a viewpoint often expressed in many of our articles where the advantages offered by the adoption of various technologies - many of them mainstays of similar activities in other types of businesses - have proved themselves applicable to our field.

So it is with a sense of concern that I recognize a reticence (in some instances an outright refusal) by some to investigate the potential for emerging technologies to lower the costs or increase the effectiveness of our activities, programs, or fundamental approaches to waste management. Here the area of conversion technologies leaps to my mind, but there are others as well. No doubt resistance to change - whether through inertia or the belief that ³what was good enough for Dad is good enough for me² - is part of the human condition, but I still wonder if there isn't something else going on: perhaps a perception that technology itself is something of a villain. Regardless, I'd like to present my case for technology, citing a few areas with which we all are familiar.

Into the World of Zeros and Ones

Many of us don't have to peel off too many barnacles to recall our dependence on such things as Selectric Typewriters (accompanied by lots of white-out strips and fluid), carbon paper, and slide rules. Do you recall initial opposition to the arrival of first- or even second-generation PCs? Better still, do you remember how hard it was to justify your budget that included one or two of these machines? Now we lose sleep over how slow our two-year-old desktop is and perhaps even consider how much it's going to cost to get rid of it to make room for the latest variant, but we have long since forgotten the drudgery this ubiquitous bit of technological magic replaced.

Messages From Beyond the Van Allen Belt

Developed initially for the military, GPS has been around for nearly three decades and since has been finding its way into a variety of civilian activities in which real-time location information is of value. Led by transportation and construction applications, the demand for GPS has emerged as a twenty-first century ³must-have,² second only to the cell phone for day-to-day wizardry, and the only wonder is why it seems to have taken many business applications longer than the general public to recognize its value. In our neck of the woods, collection and route management operators are turning to GPS to monitor and in some cases direct activities. Inevitably this will become increasingly important as security concerns, traffic and facilities congestion, and destination scheduling both for the delivery of reclaimed materials to manufacturers and of waste to intermodal sites for transshipment to remote landfills push us increasingly toward positive control of all vehicle movements.

Nor is GPS use in our industry restricted to roadway use. Initially conceived as a means of monitoring waste compaction, GPS is becoming more and more a mainstay at landfills where airspace is just too valuable a commodity to give away because of boundary errors that grow in magnitude with each successive lift.

Raising the Titanic

Automated collection has come a long way in the past few years - as so it should. As Lanny Hickman, former executive director of SWANA, points out, a person completing a career humping garbage would have accomplished single-handedly a task equal to raising the Titanic - ballast included - to the surface from its watery grave. That's an impressive accomplishment but not necessarily the best utilization of human endeavor when there are better options. True, automated collection is not possible in many situations, and there are circumstances in which the transition from manual to automatic makes no economic sense, but to my way of thinking, it should always be our goal to search for ways that protect the health, welfare, and sound backs of all of our people not because it makes for lower workers' comp costs but because it happens to be the right way to conduct our business. This same logic should guide our thinking in the design and equipping of all of our waste systems where the risk of injury or even loss of life exists.

It's Not Just a Job; It's an Adventure

Finally, there's the future. Except for those hopefully few souls who view themselves as hapless victims of an unfair destiny, most of us want to feel that our efforts are worthwhile and in fact contribute to the common good, and certainly part of this involves our ability to ensure that those who follow in our footsteps are among the best and brightest of their generation. In the competition for top young talent, we're up against formidable opponents, and it would be foolish of us not to recognize that waste management might not be on top of everyone's wish list. So what has technology to do with recruiting?

Were I just setting out to do my life's work, my first task would be to rank my options in terms of their chances for bringing me success and personal fulfillment. Chief among the indicators I'd look for would be such elements as challenge, importance to our way of life, and proximity to the cutting edge of technology. Certainly we rise to the top in two of these, and surely they are the meat and potatoes of a career. I think we can work a little harder on the sizzle.

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MSW - Elements 2005