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Recycling Waste Collection with Remote Terminals.

TREND, a north west based waste management company have set up an operation to collect recyclable waste materials from households in the Sefton area and Telepen have provided a computer based system designed to manage certain aspects of the scheme. 
Material Movements
Each participating household (customer) is allocated a green box in which to place recyclable materials.  The contents are collected by operatives using either a pedestrian guided electric vehicle or a van.  In the former case, the operative places segregated materials into sacks which are then deposited at arranged locations for later collection.  In the latter case, the segregated materials are deposited into cages on the van.
The sacks and vans eventually arrive at a depot where the materials are weighed.  The sacks are weighed directly, whereas the cages are first emptied into intermediate bins.  After weighing, the segregated materials are placed into large skips for disposal by others.
Operational Requirements
In order for the scheme to run successfully, a great deal of information on how it is performing at a given time must be available.  This information falls broadly into these categories:
1. Basic take-up analysis - which addresses are active and which are not.
2. Geographical analysis - addresses must be shown on electronic mapping.  This will enable, for example, routes to be planned and frequency of usage to be related to socio-economic area type.
3. Trend analysis - how different areas perform over time.
4. Operative performance - measured by weights of materials collected.
Data Capture Requirements
There are two critical areas of data capture in this project: the recording of every instance of material being left for collection by a customer, and the recording of the weights of materials collected by each operative. The TeleScan portable data capture unit is being used for this function, to be carried by each operative.
System Operation
The purpose-designed software is used to enter and maintain a database of customer addresses.  Each customer is automatically allocated with a unique barcode number.  The software enables self-adhesive box labels to be produced using the Datamax I-Class printer in batches or individually on demand.  These labels are printed with the address and barcode and are attached to new boxes prior to delivery.  They can also be printed for replacement boxes or to replace damaged labels.
During collection rounds, data is collected by each operative using a TeleScan which is running the Round data collection sequence.  He/she first "logs in" by reading his/her user ID from a bar-coded label fixed to his entry card.  No other barcodes are accepted until this has been done.  He then reads the barcode on each green box that contains recyclable material as the round progresses.  He may also read the barcode labels of sacks (or intermediate weighing bins) at any time after log-in followed by the round number on which they are being used.  This establishes the "ownership" of these items and the rounds they are filled from.  The date and time of every read is recorded automatically within the TeleScan.
When the materials arrive at the depot for weighing, sacks are weighed directly whereas cages from vans are first emptied into bins for weighing.  The weighing system is interfaced with the waste management system to download related data. For each container, the weighing operator first reads the sack or bin barcode.  He/she then specifies the material type by reading a barcode from a pre-printed sheet.  This enables the Telepen waste management system to provide data such as geographical trends of  use on waste collected, and also to control and record operative activity and performance.