Scottish tech firm wins contract to track all UK waste sources
Defra appoints Topolytics to capture and monitor the movement of all waste materials
DATA analytics specialists Topolytics are working with the Ordnance Survey to create a ‘smart’ system to track and monitor all of the UK’s waste. The former has been chosen by the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) to design the system and capture the 20 million-plus movements of waste, including construction, from their sources through to final processing or disposal.
Michael Groves, chief executive officer of Topolytics, said: ‘We are excited to be partnering with the Ordnance Survey on delivering a powerful and practical solution for the UK's environmental regulators and waste managers. Our combination of waste industry experience, software development, data science and geospatial analytics is a powerful mix.’
The UK Government wants to know more about how the UK's waste is generated, handled and processed in order to improve oversight, maximize the value of waste material and reduce its damage to the environment.
Topolytics say they are designing the system on their WasteMap analytics platform that helps make waste-management more cost- and resource-efficient. It ingests and processes data from many different sources and applies data science, mapping and geographic analytics to identify and qualify the sources, types and movements of different materials – making the waste system visible and verifiable throughout the processing chain.
Across the world, waste materials often end up in landfill sites or unregulated waste dumps. This represents a significant economic loss and has negative consequences for the environment and society.
Topolytics help companies that generate waste to capture greater value from the material and ensure that the value of their waste is maximized. Its data is also accessed by recyclers and others that want to recover materials and bring them back into production.
WasteMap has been developed through close collaboration with the recycling industry, the Government and academia, including pioneering sensor and analytics projects in the UK and China.
