San Francisco: IBM announced today a collaboration with Recology, San Francisco's resource recovery company, to continue reducing landfill disposal by further improving recycling programs designed to help the city achieve zero waste by 2020.
San Francisco's diversion rate -- the amount of waste diverted from landfill disposal -- totals 78 percent, the highest in the country. Just last year, independent studies named San Francisco the Greenest City in North America due to advanced recycling programs.
In collaboration with IBM Business Partner Key Info Systems, Recology is using IBM's Smarter Computing approach to IT to manage and mine large sets of data to determine types and quantities of materials in San Francisco's waste stream. With the use of IBM's Power System, Recology pinpoints the location, types and amount of waste that needs to be collected for sorting or composting.
Gleaning insights from this information allows Recology to identify the most effective recycling programs for different business districts and neighborhoods. By tailoring recycling programs and services in this way, Recology operates more efficiently, which helps protect the environment and saves costs, which helps cities better manage collection and disposal fees -- all steps that ultimately benefit residents and businesses.