Contents

• Few words about D-Waste

• Intro
• What is Waste Atlas?
• How it can be utilized?
– Forecasting waste flows and composition
– Comparing countries and cities
– Finding facilities
• Next steps
0. About D-Waste

www.d-waste.com
1. Intro

Data is the new oil? No: Data is the new soil.

David McCandless, TEDGlobal, 2010

You can have data without information, but you

cannot have information without data.
Daniel Keys Moran
Information becomes more and has
greater value…

… but it also becomes more

difficult to get what is
important!!!
• Google receives over 2 million search
queries a minute.
• Unstructured data accounts for 80% of the
• Google: over 2 million
search queries a minute.
data in the world
• Unstructured data
accounts for 80% of the
• $900 Billion/year: cost of lowered
data
• $900 Billion/year: cost of
information overload.
employee productivity and reduced
innovation from information overload.
Data Oceans Create Confusion

•Data are more than we need

•Need to organize it

•Data need to become information

Data oceans might intercept your ability to perform the

task you want
LET’S GATHER THE GLOBAL WASTE
MANAGEMENT DATA IN ONE PLACE
2. What is Waste Atlas?
Inspired by…
About Atlas…

• It is a global initiative that aims to gather,

manage and visualize all the municipal
solid waste data available worldwide for
countries, big cities, dumpsites and
facilities
• It is an effort to create a single, reliable
and cooperative source for municipal solid
waste and a global community that will
make it sustainable
• It is a map and a planning tool too
Waste Atlas in brief…

As a waste map… Beyond visualization…

• Global alliance of • A powerful tool for
organizations that waste planners
promote sustainable • A unique database waiting
waste management
for researchers and
• Free for everyone who academics to study it
needs such data
• A valuable source for
every decision
maker and
consultant
Waste Atlas Content (May 2013)
•162 Countries •96 MBTs

•1582 cities •72 BTs

•650 SLs •46 of the world’s

•700 WtE biggest dumpsites

Useful Features
Data providers and data management

• Research & Crowdsourcing

• How about Wikipedia?
• Screening tools
• Scientific and Steering Committees
• Universities to join
Customized Charts
Global Waste Management Maps
Global Correlation Charts
3. Utilizing Waste Atlas

• Waste forecast
• Comparing cities and countries
• Looking for facilities
3.1 Waste Forecast

• Waste forecast is an elementary

component for any plan and facility design
• Usual approaches are based on steady or
variable rates of increase (e.g. X% for
year) of waste generation per capita
• Population increase is also taken into
consideration
• Relation with the economic growth is
usually ignored or not quantified
Ignoring the previous
results in invalid or even
useless waste forecasts
…and this results to
serious mistakes in
sizing of facilities and
budgeting
Utilizing Atlas data
How to work?
3.2 Compare cities and countries
Find systems with similar GDP/cap
3.3 Find facilities
Search by name or address
Measure distances from other points
Find more data to links
4. Next steps

• Users & contributors

• Technology
• Science
• Funding
Users & contributors

• Almost 1000 scientists have contributed

• It is a global network of waste management
professionals that can drive further evolution - we
must include them in all next steps
• Different distinct users are more than 1,500 per month

Waste Atlas users and

contributors must be
organized in a community
with its own events,
website, social media etc.
Technology

• New mobile app to arrive on October 2013 – it will

allow direct reporting for any waste management
facility form any user – screening before upload

User Data Base

New features under
preparation
Admin
Area measurement
Documents linked with
geolocation
Time series availability

Direct
Reporting
Science

• Better typology and profiles required

• More research and statistic analysis
• Focus on 100 biggest cities and 1000 bigger
dumpsites worldwide
• Papers, dissertations to be implemented
Funding

• Waste Atlas and its apps are available for any similar
application - they can be used for any mapping activity
• Donors
• Ads
• Workshops
 Thank you for your attention!!!

antonis.mavropoulos@d-waste.com

Presentation available on:

www.d-waste.com