Big Brother is using AI to spy on your recycling bin in the Central Okanagan

Hundreds of notices are being mailed out this week telling Central Okanagan residents they’re not recycling properly.

A pilot project was launched six weeks ago using Artificial Intelligence to take photos of inappropriate recycling material in bins being emptied into collection trucks but residents are just now being told it’s happening.

“It’s testing the technology but it’s also testing the messaging,” Cynthia Coates, supervisor of solid waste services for the Regional District of Central Okanagan told iNFOnews.ca. “We wanted to collect baseline data without any of that information interfering with current behaviour.”

For the past six weeks, four of the 20 trucks used to pick up recycling bins from homes throughout the regional district have been using the technology to scan material.

Those trucks picked up recycling bins from about 20,000 homes with 300 to 400 a day having some level of contamination.

The latest data available to the regional district showed that 8% of the recycled material collected was contaminated during the last quarter of 2022. Recycle BC only permits 3% so that resulted in $55,000 in fines to Kelowna and West Kelowna for the quarter.

That doesn’t mean that 8% of households are not recycling correctly. The pilot project shows the number of households is much higher, but only small amounts of contaminants are in each bin.

For the next six weeks, postcards with pictures of the contaminants will be sent to the household but other material will be blurred out in the photos.

READ MORE: Kelownafornia: Canada’s wannabe golden state

The messaging on the postcards has been divided into two groups, with half the recipients receiving information about what materials to keep out of the recycling bins while the others will be told what should be recycled, Coates said.

Most of the contamination is due to the fact that people are putting their recycling into plastic bags before it goes into the bins, she said.

There will be another six weeks of follow-up monitoring to see if the program was effective and which type of messages worked best. After that, a decision will be made on whether to expand or scrap the AI option.

Currently cameras do film what’s being dumped out of the recycle bins but it’s up to the drivers to note any contamination and type the information into a computer. The AI will speed up that process.

The pilot program is costing $68,000, split equally between the regional district and Recycle BC.

No new fines have been issued by Recycle BC so far this year because the regional district put a “contamination remediation” plan in place.

The effectiveness of that plan is now being audited after being in place for nine months to determine if additional fines will be levied.