The idea of earning a few pounds on your own garbage was first introduced by Georgia Tech. A small income of money is supposed to support the recycling process and its development. The secret lies in this inconspicuous, yet smart rubbish bin.

The integrated system made up of a garbage container and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), which is supposed to read information and tags from incoming waste. It is probable that the device will be sending statistics and other information about what we throw out to the nearest base, where the collected data will be calculated into an average market price of our “treasures”, minus a fee for the next bill.

It is worth mentioning that RFID radio identification system is becoming more popular each passing day. In a few years all products available in the market will have the tiny chip inserted. All necessary data about the product, its producer, suppliers, service and much more will be saved and stored in it to be available for its users at all times.

One of the components will also be a wireless connection with the local garbage collecting company. This will allow to send important information about the quality and type of our garbage, a pre-selection of sorts. The head office will know what they will be able to find in the next garbage transport way before the actual collecting. Thanks to that preparations for sorting process will be made, enabling sorting more waste of specific type. It might be bottles, paper, electronics and many more.

Some people are not optimistic, when thinking about the system. They are afraid that the RFID will be difficult to be found anywhere – there aren’t many products supported by the system sold and with help of the eco-bin we can get money only for these. And only whole, possibly undamaged. On the other hand, at some point the chip will probably food the market, pushed forcefully into everything, either we want it, or not. These skeptics are silenced easily. If you really care for the environment, you start with the small things, and RFID helps with that. The whole point of undamaged garbage is to lower the costs of recycling. All that money can go to improving and modernizing the process, thus helping cleaning Earth, at least a little. The money is the upside as well. Who wouldn’t want to get money only for taking out their trash? This might be like every small child’s dream, to be rewarded for cleaning.