Digitalization of waste management: Insights from German private and public waste management firms

The most frequently used technology on board of vehicles is a simple navigation system (69%). Other technologies (e.g. smartphone app for driver assistance, digital status monitoring of the vehicles, real-time transmission of data to office) have been implemented by between 21% and 40% of the respondents.
In contrast, between 16% and 40% of the participants do not regard these digital technologies to be relevant.
Of all respondents, 68% use a telematics system, of which 69% use it for process optimizations and 17% for control purposes. 73% of the respondents using a telematics system also use a digital dispatching system. Firms that use an ERP system employ a telematics system statistically significantly more often than firms that do not. 73% of respondents use a printed proof of performance that needs to be signed with a pen; 35% of respondents use geocodes and time stamps; only 29% store the proof of performance on a digital device where the customer provides a digital signature. Often, more than one kind of documentation of service provisionis used. Almost 90% of all respondents indicate they use digital technologies to perform container management. The most common digital technologies comprise integrated near-field communication tags, radio-frequency identification chips, and barcodes. The digital technologies are primarily used for the location tracking of containers and less for the monitoring of containers’ filling levels. For storing the data gathered from tracking containers, 47% of all respondents use an ERP system, 25% spreadsheet, and 15% pen and paper. For weighing & sorting, 27% of the respondents have incorporated a scale into their vehicles. With regard to the proof of weight, 51% of the respondents who own a scale record the weighing note digitally and transfer it to their ERP system. 41% use a printed weight receipt. With regard to sorting, 47% of the respondents who have a sorting plant sort the waste automatically, and 38% sort it manually.