LoRaWAN for tracking inland routes of plastic waste: Introducing the smart TRACKPLAST bottle

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to showcase the work of the TRACKPLAST research project, first conceived in 2017 and submitted as a funding application in 2018, resulting in the development of the TRACKPLAST smart bottle and its successful tracking during its land journey, which to our knowledge constitutes the first non-GPS attempt to track plastic waste, identify its inland sources and follow its routes before it enters the sea. Waste tracking is made possible through the development of an open source LoRa-based wireless sensor network, enhanced with gateways and complemented by a cloud platform for the geolocation and visualization of bottle positions and routes. The project’s LoRa IoT sensor and antenna are seamlessly embedded in the specially designed TRACKPLAST bottle, which being identical and almost as light as the actual waste, can replicate close-to-true movement patterns when disposed in the environment. The pilot implementation of the proposed technology took place in the Greek island of Syros, where sixty-nine smart bottles were disposed freely in the environment between April 4 and May 5, 2022. The TRACKPLAST cloud platform was able to locate, track and visualize on a map, the signals of the smart bottles throughout their entire battery lifecycle and until June 24, 2022, when the last device stopped emitting its signal. The proposed solution aspires to contribute to the alleviation of marine plastic pollution, through the collection, processing and visualization of plastic waste movement data, which if treated properly can support decisions for improving the responsiveness and efficiency of waste management systems.