Sunday, 4 June 2017

Why can’t we simply forget about the Piezoelectric Roads, it’s a highway robbery!

The concept of piezoelectric roads has been around for many years, because of some obvious reasons this has never be implemented in reality. However, I am surprised that there are still people, even some academics, come up and propose this idea as if it’s a real sustainable and renewable energy source, every now and then.

The piezoelectric effect is where the electric charge accumulates in materials, such as certain crystal and ceramics, in response to mechanical stress. In simple words, if such materials are used on the surface of motorway, pressures and impacts from passing by vehicles can be used for generating electricity.

Estimation on piezoelectric roads shows that “1 km of runway can produce up to 500 kWh of electricity per hour” by harvesting “energy from weight, motion, vibration and temperature changes.” Woohoo! Free, long term and sufficient energy come from nowhere, must be green and sustainable! But isn’t this something too good to be true?
If you are having some doubt like me, you are 100% correct. This is not some magical clean energy come from nowhere or collected from wastes, this is an energy robbery from the passing by vehicles, which is essentially non-sustainable fossil energy.
We all know there is a certain law called conservation of energy. In order to make the car to move, the engine burns fuel, convert fossil energy into heat energy, burst the air and push pistons to convert it into motion energy, passing such motion through transmission to the wheels, after wasting much on fiction to the road surface and air, we eventually convert fossil energy in the fuel into the kinetic energy that moves the vehicle. The efficiency of the whole process would not be more than 15%, i.e. 85% of the fossil energy has been wasted in order to push our car to the expected speed.
Now, in order to generate piezoelectricity, the precious kinetic energy has to be converted back into electricity by adding humps to the road or increasing the surface fiction and slowing down the vehicle. This is literally robbing money from the passing-by drivers who paid the fuel for moving their cars, and in the most inefficient and unsustainable way.
During the recent study and researches, I have identified that there are many so-claimed sustainable energy/solutions are actually anti-sustainable. Some need to be considered from environment impacts of the full life cycle, some simply decorates non-sustainable methods with fancy names, but the concept of Piezoelectric Roads is totally a post-truth, i.e. bullshit, that has been repeated many times. I wonder when can we reach a full stop of this?

Saturday, 3 June 2017

Electric road in operation

Around the same time last year, the so claimed world’s first electric road opened in central Sweden, it is a 2-kilometre strip on the motor way where trucks can switch to non-fossil energy (through the pantograph power collector on the top). This was reported as a pioneer technology for sustainable energy and a milestone for the renewable energy transportation, however I was deeply confused.
I am confused not because this technique is too difficult for my brain, but because such “hybrid” vehicles was running everywhere in my city while I was a child, and since when it became a ground-breaking technique again in the western world?
Characterised by the two long “plait” on top of the bus, the electric driven buses were used for decades in China and are still in use in some cities. This might not be driven by a green source of electric power such as solar power, however electric is electric, I have no idea how an ancient technique can be repacked as an evolutionary renewable energy solution.
Well, I guess it’s not always about true or false in the massive “green” energy industry, decorated ideas that attract more funding and profits play a more important role.

Not just material recycling, but also spirit inheriting

My No. 1 favourite architect, the first Chinese citizen winner of the Pritzker Prize, Wang Shu is known as a material master because he always re-uses materials that are salvaged from the demolished traditional local buildings. Tiles, in particular, are one of the important form in Shu’s material palette.
While Shu designed the Xiangshan Campus, China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, he and his team rescued more than 2 million old tiles from the local traditional houses demolished by the government, and used these to build the walls, roofs and grounds in the campus.

Last October, I visited the Xiangshan Campus and I cannot be more amazed and impressed by Shu’s work. It appears to be a nice example of integrating the recycling and sustainable concepts with traditional Chinese aesthetic, however there is a lot more than that.



Shu believes materials are not just materials, experiences, memories and spirit are embedded in these rescued tiles. While I stared at the walls, the roofs, I could help to wonder: who are the people who used to live under these tiles, and what kind of stories have happened in those demolished houses.
I was so touched because I did feel the history and the spirit carry by these materials.

Cambodian Slums

The south-east Asian country Cambodia, after many years of civil war, is known for its poverty and under-development. Although around 80% of the total population live in the rural area, there are more than 1.5 million (more than 10% of the total) inhabitants were living in the capital city Phnom Penh by 2012. The population growth in Phnom Penh was boosting dramatically from 189,000 to 1.5 million within 34 years (1978-2012), and will be some predicted figure of 3 million by the end of 2016.

As a consequence of the rapid city expansion, more and more slums appear along the skirt of the city, and presents miserable living conditions with lack of essential infrastructure, such as sanitation, waste removal, clean water and electricity.
According to the 2014 Cambodia national demographic and health survey, “one in every 36 Cambodian children die before their first birthday, and one in every 29 do not survive to their fifth birthday”. It is not surprising to find this causal relationship considering 35% of Cambodian households (dry season) are still obtaining their drinking water from non-improved sources (e.g. surface water, tank water etc.)
We generally understand the source of slums is the poverty, however according to the data from the World Bank, the poverty rate in Cambodia was constantly drop from 47.8% in 2007 down to 13.5% in 2014, with 90% of the poor live in the countryside. If the poverty is no longer the most significant problem, why more and more slums emerge after so much efforts and economy growth?
In my opinion, the main reason of the Cambodian slums now-a-day is the imbalanced growth of regional economy. The economic boost in the urban area attracts large population to the capital city, and in turn generate more demands on resources and infrastructure that the city cannot afford. The quicker the city develops, the more incoming migrants from the rural areas for new opportunities.
The local resources are limited and unsustainable for fulfilling the demands from fast growing population. In order to solve the slum issue in the long term, focusing on localised solutions, such as building more infrastructure, is not sufficient. The best direction, IMO, is to design and implement more sustainable policies that distribute investments more towards the rural areas. Only when the country boys have similar opportunities as the city people, the slum issue can eventually be solved and eliminated.
National Institute of Statistics (NIS), Directorate General for Health, and ICF International, 2015. Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey 2014. Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Rockville, Maryland, USA: National Institute of Statistics, Directorate General for Health, and ICF International.

Black waters in Caley Valley Wetlands – An eco-bomb in the Great Barrier Reef?

What a coincidence that our due date (04/Jun) is the same day as the world ocean festival, or was it set to on purpose? This reminds me to have put some contents about the ocean.
A couple weeks ago, a Uni colleague brought my attention to the black water incident at Caley Valley, and I then did some researches online.

Apparently the two satellite images below lead to accusations against Adani, the mining company owns and runs the Abbot Point Coal Terminal in north Queensland. Both images were supplied by the Queensland government, and the left one shows the wetlands before the waste water release, whilst the right picture was taken after the Cyclone Debbie hit, in which the wetlands have obviously turned black.
 Before Waste Water Release
After Cyclone Debbie Hit

Most people got shocked by the change and debates have been focused on the following topics: 1. Is the water black or only appears to be black on the satellite image? 2. Is it a coal spill to the wetland or anything else such as magnetite? 3. Was it a natural wetland or a man-made swamp for duck hunting?
Although Adani has been arguing that the picture was simply because of different reflection, however the follow-up drone video clearly showed this was a lie. Adani then said the company had obtained the appropriate licence and there has been no breach to the conditions.
I have no idea on how the licence is set and under what regulation, but considering the already fragile eco-environment in the great barrier reef, shouldn’t more strict regulations be applied in this area? No matter it’s fault of Adeni or Debbie, coal or magnetite, dumping waste water to such an easily overflowed area is never a wise solution IMO.


Garbage Incineration in China

As 1.4 billion people living in this country, China creates more than 360 million tonnes of domestic waste every year. Around half of the garbage goes to landfill, less than a quarter is burnt or used fertiliser, and the rest is not properly treated. Landfill requires a lot of land and generate foul odours, as the land and real estate price went crazy in China, incineration has become an ideal choice for major cities.
The government has set main priority on building new garbage incinerating plants, and we saw a boost in new facilities between 2008 and 2015. More than 100 billion Yuan (AU$20 billion) has been invested in this sector, and by the end of 2020, the country will have a total of 300 incinerators that are capable to process 300,000 tonnes of garbage per day.
Actually, burning the garbage is a profitable business in China, and with the incentive from the government, it’s even more profitable than many other industries. The raw material, garbage, is free of charge or even paid to collect. The electricity generated from burning garbage can feed back to the grid at a generous buyback price. One side-effect is, in the past, some incinerator managers even added coal to the garbage in order to generate more power for profit.

However, the incinerating is apparently far from ideal as a main garbage process means. There is, so far, no enforced garbage sorting rules in China, residual and recyclable wastes are generally mixed together, and sometimes even contain waste with chemical hazard. There are no clear regulations to govern the operation and pollution prevention in these projects. The existing standards were out-of-date and vague as these were made up in the late 1990s. Residents need the incinerators have objected and protested to the government in many cities, because of the fume, odours and other forms of pollutions.

The waste treatment is definitely most challenging in China than any other countries due to the massive population, however I believe the current policy, either land fill or incineration, is quite crude and non-sustainable. Waste treatment industry should not be evaluated only by the profitability, and garbage categorisation and sorting are the most important step before any industrial handling process.

Smarter than VIC’s offshore wind farm? China’s floating solar farm

The city of Huainan, China, is small city always known for its coal mine. However, who would imagine such a city of “dirty” fossil energy has become a pilot in the renewable energy industry?
The world’s largest floating solar plant has been established on an area of water in Huainan. This solar farm is able to produce 40MW of power and to supply clean energy to the city.

Putting the panels out on the water has a number of benefits, such as not taking up precious farm land or real estate, reducing the evaporation from the reservoir, utilising the cool wind above water to prolong the life of panel and increase the production efficiency.

And the sweetest part of this project is that the water is a naturally flooded former coal mining land. Due to the previous mining work, such flooded area is not suitable for either recreation or food production purposes, thus there’s little ecology concern in implementing massive facilities at such area.

Comparing to the wind farm VIC government plans to build over the sea, and the money it plans to spend, scalable solar farm on a waste land seems to be a smarter plan to me.



http://www.designboom.com/technology/sungrow-floating-solar-plant-huainan-china-05-25-2017/

Australian Home Builder prefers Powerwall

Due to the annually price hike on our ridiculously volatile power grid (no thanks to the government for selling the grid), OZ residents are always keen, and capable enough, to try the latest renewable technique. And the home builders has quickly sensed this demand and made their move.

Since the Melbourne-based housing developer Metricon started to offer the “roof-top solar and battery” as an option to a range of project homes in Queensland, another building company Arden has move one step further and offering the solar+powerwall as standard.
Australia might be the best country for solar energy: Clear sky, strong sun light, long day time, high income, unstable grid and expensive rate. Although in another other blog I am not too optimistic on how the Powerwall may change the world of renewable energy, it is still exciting to see at least how these new technique can improve people’s life in a positive way.


http://www.ardenhomes.com.au/tesla-battery-storage
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/04/12/solar-tesla-battery-storage-offered-new-build-queensland-homes/

Roof greening in Beijing

Due to the rapid growth and the boosting population, a large portion of the recent reports on Beijing was related to the air pollution problem. However, large area of impenetrable surfaces, e.g. roads, car parks and roof tops, leads to a new challenge for the city.
Because of the increment of the impenetrable layers, massive amount of rain water enters the storm water system and overwhelms the designed capacity. There were a number of inner city flooding events in the recent years. The Urban heat island (UHI) effect is also enhanced because of the loss of vegetation zones, and the temperature difference can be up to 6.5C°.

Roof-top greening was then proposed under this circumstance. There are about 93 million square metres roof areas in Beijing are suitable for roof-top greening. The estimated benefits include reducing the air pollution by 880,000 tonnes, prevent up to 3.6 million cube metre storm water from entering the storm water system during heavy rains, and lower the average temperature by 0.32C° during the summer. However, 29 billion Yuan (AU$5.8 billion) plus the annual maintenance cost are required for such project.

In fact, the Beijing government already started to subsidy the roof-top greening since 2008. The city greening area was growing at a rate of more than 100,000 sqm per year since 2005.
The roof-top greening may have positive effect to Beijing because many government buildings occupies large area of lands and are mostly flat roofs. However, besides the huge cost required for this plan, a big concern is how the greening would affect the roof structure and maintenance.

Similar to how the designed capacity of storm water system is overwhelmed, existing roofs are not designed to bear soil and plants. If 360,000 tonnes of water are expected to be saved from entering the storm water system, that means 360,000 tonnes of water will remain on the roofs on top of the soil and plants. Possible corrosion to the surface of the roofs from fertiliser and irrigation is also a serious problem, especially because the inspection on the roof are limited by the greening.
In my opinion, there are a lot of potential problems with the roof-top greening whilst the benefits are neglect. If there is budget as big as 30 billion Yuan, it should be used in better projects.
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/ch/5625-Beijing-needs-a-green-roof-revolution-

Big data, Internet of Things and Smart City

Aha! Three popular key words in one title, three hot areas from different domain, how exciting! But isn’t this the natural way of how techniques are developed, integrated and evolved?
I remember when I first arrived Australia 12 years ago, I was so confused when finding a yellow sign of “bus stop” attached to a regular power pole. I had no idea why there was no information about the route, stations and time for the following services. I was told this was the way how OZ bus services have run for many years, and please do not expect things to change dramatically in the following many years.
Part of the suggestion is correct, after so many years, the old bus stop appears exactly the same with the old yellow sign attached to the same power pole. However, huge change has happened under the water, because of the advance and usage of technology. With the use of Opal card and smart phone, everyone can easily check the real-time location of the next service, see the small icon move on your screen and be prepared to wave to the bus that is about to show from the corner of the street. How amazing when every bus, train and even bicycle is connected online! But the better part is yet to come.

For so many years, city planners are struggled to connect their future imaginations with the difficult realities. Bus stops are rarely upgraded because no one knows how necessary it is. Traffic at a roundabout get jammed every day because few people know the problem, reason and solution. Planning to pave a new bike lane but having trouble to understand which path is the most optimised route for commuters.
But now, by connecting every bus to the IoT, all trips of every individual passenger are transparent to the policy makers in details. Traffic congestion can be displayed on map and updated every minute. With the help of big data technique, for the first time of all, the city planners can virtually know all the existing problems, the optimised solutions and the potential opportunities.
Sounds a bit scary though, the era of true SMART city is about to come with the help of data sciences.

Understand the electricity tariffs

It has been a while since I moved to the new place with two power metres in the box.
I was not aware that the rate on one metre (the Controlled Load 1) is much cheaper than the other until the first bill arrived.

However, it took even longer for me to understand why there’s such a big difference and how it encourages the residents to consume the energy wiser.
The controlled load is a tariff dedicated to large, high energy usage appliances and it is metered separately at a much cheaper rate. Only the hot water system is connected to the control load supply in my home, and the rate is only 1/3 of the regular supply.
The only catch is that the controlled load 1 only supplies for some limited hours (10pm – 7am) during the night, which is called non-peak energy demand periods. Why is the power cheaper during night then?
Due to the size and design, most power plants work continuously and steadily all year around, e.g. fossil fuel power station cannot be shut down in the night and restarted in the morning, a wind farm generate power whenever there’s wind, therefore the electricity power is generated in a stable rate day and nights. However, the consumption of energy has clear daily pattern as most offices, factories and homes stop using power in the night.
Electricity is the most convenient form of power supply but a shortcoming is that it cannot be easily stored. The coal can be burnt because it’s essentially a block of energy from ancient ages, once the coal is burnt in the power plant, the inner energy is released and transformed into the form of electricity. However, there are limited methods to transform the energy of electricity into other form, such as converting it back to a block of coal.
Battery and hydropower plant are two common ways of storing abundant electricity, in the form of chemical and potential energy respectively, though both are limited by capacity and expenditure issue.
Instead of wasting the already generated power overnight, the hot water system in our home can convert the power into the heat energy and store it as hot water for the use during the day, that’s why the controlled load tariff is applied to encourage people to utilise the power during off-peak period and use the cheap rate as incentive.
Although one may select the controlled load purely for the financial benefits, the usage of controlled load has somehow contributed to a sustainable usage of the power. It would be more efficient if this is used together with other system such as the Tesla Powerwall.

https://www.canstarblue.com.au/energy/electricity/controlled-load-tariff-can-save-money/

The disappearance and reappearance of bike lane

Sharing the road with a bicycle rider can be scary and also frustrating in Australia, both for the driver and the rider. I was always wondering, are there too many riders for the road or too few roads for the riders.

When I was a kid in China, all roads in the city have wide bike lane on each side, trees were planted to physically separate the automobiles and bicycles and provide shade to the cyclists. Riding used to be safe and relaxing as the commonest commuting method in China, and I started to ride to school with friends since year four. As the city expanded and grew, roads were rebuilt and widen, more cars were on the road, however, the bike lane started to disappear.

Road in China (1980s and now)

This does not only happen in China, there used to be bike lanes in UK in late 1800, however the riders were pulled out of their special lanes and were forced to ride on the same roads with machines four times faster and twenty times heavier.
Luckily, as wider roads can only lead to more cars on road and slower traffics, the city planners have realised the rationalities behind the bike infrastructures. Bike path has reappeared in Sydney and many other major cities in the world.
Hopefully, drivers and cyclists can both be relieved with the latest riding culture and infrastructure, and enjoy the road harmony and sustainable life in the future.

Bike lane in late 1800 UK and the new bike path in Sydney CBD


Offshore Wind Farm

The Victoria government has recently proposed a plan of an offshore wind farm consists of 250 turbines which can generate 1/5 of the state’s energy. The estimated investment is eight billion dollars and could reduce 10.5 million tonnes of CO2 emission.

We have been reading news about the power shortage problem in Victoria for quite some time, mostly since commitment on increasing the portion of green energy and closing down conventional power plants. And since SA reduced the energy sales to VIC, power shortage has become a severe problem for VIC. Now with the free and clean wind power generators, the future of VIC looks brighter, doesn’t it?

In my opinion, this is yet another example of green energy plan that is attractive however not sustainable overall. Obtaining power for free from the wind sounds like the cleanest option so it must be green, after all the wind will pass by with or without a turbine sticking there. However, this might only be true when we are talking about a wind mill hundreds of years ago. Modern turbines for electricity generation do harm the environment such as producing noise, killing avian and reducing the wind speed dramatically. Many so called green solution such as the solar panel, rechargeable battery and multiuse shopping bag are actually less friendly to the ecosystem considering the full life cycle including production and disposal process. Wind farm as large as this will cause unknown impacts to the sea lives and surrounding environment during the whole construction, operation, maintenance and destruction life cycle. It’s doubtful to see if the benefits would justify the investment and side effects to the environment? I tend to believe the larger human made plant, the worse impact it has to the surrounding environment, no matter how green it is supposed to be.



The US quits the Paris climate accord

The first breaking news in this June is that President Trump announced the U.S. will pull out of the Paris accord on global warming. Almost all voices on various medias are accusing Trump for not considering the future of the earth, whilst Trump either didn’t believe the greenhouse findings or he decided that it’s more important to recover American economy.
There are multiple types of gases that are considered to contribute to the greenhouse effect, e.g. water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all blocks the heat radiation from the earth to the space. Even though the global warming becomes the most important sustainable topic around the world, and a number of political and economic deals have been made, there are still many different voices questioning this theory.
I support the sustainable development because this is essential for a better life of all human-beings and our kids in future. I have seen how much damage the industrial pollution and destroy of eco-system have made to our life. However, I am not very convinced by the anti-carbon-dioxide trend and kind of support Trump on this particular issue.
Like many others, I am questioning: 1. Is there really a global warming issue? 2. If there is a trend of global warming, is it really the human activity that caused it? 3. Even it is true that human/industrial activities changed the temperature, is the carbon dioxide really responsible for the problem?
The change of climate is generally measured with a scale of hundreds of years or even longer, whilst the term of globally warming only existed for decades. Geological evidences suggest that either warmer or colder climate are commonly found in the past, and the temperatures were a lot higher or lower than the current average. And a main cause of such temperature change is often related to the radiation from the sun.
Anyway, either party in the global warming debate has found figures and theories to support or oppose the idea. It is also too hard at this stage to identify if reducing carbon-dioxide would prevent the global warming is a post-truth or not. Apparently, Donald Trump has selected to prioritise the real economy on top of reducing the CO2 emission. In my opinion, this may not lead to any sustainable crisis but is a quite realistic move for a better life of US people.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2015/02/09/top-10-global-warming-lies-that-may-shock-you/

Tesla Powerwall

Benefited by its cutting-edge battery technology, the famous electric sports car maker, Tesla, has expanded its business to the residential energy market by introducing the Powerwall system.

The latest generation of Powerwall 2 can be installed either on the wall or under the floor, and provides 13.2 kWh of storage using the lithium-ion batteries set.
Although it is said that the Powerwall system is the trend of sustainable energy, or is supposed to be a perfect match of the solar panel system. I am barely convinced on how the batteries can be a sustainable saviour of our daily life.
The Powerwall is fairly expensive. The estimated cost including installation is around $10,000, or $15,000 if bundled with solar panels. Even with a long ten-year warranty, the payback term is estimated to be 1.5 to 3 times of the warranty period. I.e., under the best situation, if the system keeps running without any decay and break down, your investment can only be returned in 15 years.
On the other hand, the batteries only store energy generated by the solar panel, or from a off-peak cheaper tariff. Once the power is generated from the solar panel, storing it in the battery or selling it back to the grid does not change its sustainable fact. The Powerwall system may help to save some peak power usage, however such benefit is fully eliminated by the expensive initial cost.
We all understand the sustainability of a product should be evaluated over the full life cycle, while the production and disposal of battery is never the cleanest business in the world. Spending tens of thousand dollars on a system that may eventually break even, to me, does not worth the environmental damage to produce and recycle such large amount of batteries.
Powerwall, it may be a possible self-supporting solution for rural areas with no power grid. However, looks more like an expensive fashionable toy for people with deep pockets rather than sustainability pursuit.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/battery-price-war-sees-tesla-powerwall-2-beaten-even-before-first-deliveries-44252/

Bike sharing service – patching the last kilometre gap of the public transports?

Underground public transportation, such as the metro, is obviously the best solution for remitting the traffic congestions in the metropolis. It’s quick, on-time and has sufficient capacity, however, unlike the buses, the metro stations are generally sparser. The distance between the destinations and the closest station is often around or more than one kilometre.

Like many other public services, the coverage to the last kilometre is either expensive or not feasible to be supported. However, to the public transport commuters, the last kilometre is a bit far to walk however too close to justify the time and cost of calling a cab.
Bicycle sharing is a new business model emerged and expanded in China recently, and it is designed to provide a cheap and convenient transport method for the last kilometre issue.

The Mobike, the biggest and initiative company of the bicycle sharing, has received large amount of investments, and have deployed hundreds of thousands special designed bicycles close to the metro stations in capital cities. Unlocking a bike requires only one scan from the app installed in smart phone, and the rate is set at 0.5 or 1 Yuan RMB (10 or 20 Australian cents) per half hour.

All Mobike bicycles equip GPS tracker, electronic lock and unique QR code for scan to unlock. The convenience and high-tech properties make Mobike extremely welcomed by Chinese commuters, and it also seems to be much more environmental friendly than the car sharing business (Uber). Although the company has not made real profit during the initial expansion, this seems to be a good idea that contributes to a sustainable smart city.

https://qz.com/942372/mobike-one-of-chinas-top-bike-sharing-startups-is-now-paying-users-to-ride-its-bikes/


Aquaponics

Fertiliser has been widely used for growing plants from farms to the backyard garden bed, however many negative environmental effects may be caused, such as pollution to the water, soil acidification etc. In recent years, a prevailing symbiotic system that integrates the aquaculture and hydroponics became a successful sustainable solution for scalable organic food production.
An aquaponics system grows fish and plants together by implementing a micro eco-system. The high level of ammonia in the fish tank water is unhealthy for the fishes, however this is a nutrition-rich resource for growing plants. The water is continuously recirculated between both systems, and is cleansed and fertilising the plants by passing the roots in the hydroponics system. The aquaponics system use 10% of the water required for soil-based gardening, and even less water for the aquaculture system because no discharge is required.
I find the aquaponics system is very interesting because this is a self-supporting system requires very little maintenance. According to many reports, plants grow faster than in a traditional garden and the running cost is neglect as a small water pump is the only energy consuming device in a well-designed system. The good scalability and low cost makes this not only a solution for developed country such as Australia, but can also be a safe food source in the less developed areas as both animal protein and vegetable can be harvested from the same setup.



https://www.theaquaponicsource.com/what-is-aquaponics/


Smart bin for better recycling?

I have seen enough people getting confused on which bin their garbage should go, yellow or red. The general rules are easy to understand however many items are still in a vague area. An interesting “smart bin” named Eugene was crowdfunded in French last year, and it’s supposed to make the decision easier.
Eugene can scan the barcode of the package, then do a search on whether the material is recyclable, and guide the user place the rubbish in to the right bin. Sounds really something smart, hi-tech and, errrh, sustainable, doesn’t it?

One may get enough satisfaction from scanning the garbage one by one on this $450+ (299 euros) hi-tech bin and feel good for contributing to the environment, but is that true?
In order to get things correctly sorted, you have to buy processed foods, groceries and everything with a barcode, generally these are plastic packages. What about your fresh fruits, vegies or newspaper? Besides the expensive price you have paid for the bin itself, it consumes power, internet and multiple servers runs 24x7 for identifying the barcodes. Barcode cannot suggest what is a good recycling manner, the bin won’t remind you to clear your food from the package or wash your milk bottle before disposal.
And most importantly, a “smart bin” does nothing smart to reduce the rubbish, it may even encourage you to scan and dump rather than think carefully of reuse. At the end of the day, the bin itself becomes a big chunk of electronic rubbish, which is known to be the most unwanted landfill.
In summary: the smart bin is a useless modern toy which contributes nothing to the sustainability issue. Spending the same amount of money on else activity can do much better for the whole world. For those really can’t classify rubbish, there are mobile apps essentially have the same function to scan the barcode for you.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/13/smart-trash-can-helps-educate-reluctant-recyclers/#/