A study was conducted by Elfasakhany A. et al., about automated waste segregation.

The aim of
the proponents was to design, build and test an autonomous system capable of sorting common
recyclable materials, namely ferrous and nonferrous metals, plastics and glass into distinct waste
containers. The system was designed with an aluminum chassis, loading carrier maneuvered by a
geared motor and a rubber band, sensors for blowing the plastic bottles, DC motor to drive the
sorted material, and containers for the storage of sorted materials. Electromagnetic sensor was
used to distinguish different metals because of its electrical and magnetic properties. Air fan and
light sensor were also used to distinguish between plastics and glass materials. Arduino
microcontroller was used to control all the system actions by merging the interfaces of all the
system components by means of programming. Diverse iterations were used for distinguishing
different trash materials. The system has been successfully implemented and was able to sort
trash materials of different shape, size, weight and color without being affected by dust, coatings
or other impurities covering the trash materials. The project can be endorsed to household up to
small and medium industries with the advantages of low power consumption and inexpensive.
[Elfasakhany, 2015]

Moreover, in the study conducted by Suwon Shin and Kaiyuan Fan, the trash bin lid is integrated
to automatically open when a user is nearby. An indicator is also added to specify the content
status of the trash bin. A capacitive proximity sensor was used to identify the non-metallic
objects. An Arduino microcontroller was used to operate all of the added procedures. The
separation of metallic and non-metallic objects (i.e., paper, plastic, etc.) is more accurate but
consumes too much power. Each bin is connected to a different power supply thus considered as
not economical for everyday use. [Shin et al 2012]
Another researcher, Bautista, M. conducted a recent study that addresses proper waste
segregation and disposal through the use of an alert system and an Arduino-based waste detector.
The suggested approach separates waste into distinct categories by first using image processing.
The user will learn from this what kind of waste they are disposing of and how to properly
dispose of it in its designated bin. It can be characterized by biodegradable materials, plastic, or
metal. To notify the user that they have tossed their trash in the incorrect bin, a notification will
flash and a buzzer will sound. Additionally, it can gauge the amount of waste in the bins and
notify the utility worker when it is full.
Additionally, another study conducted by Samreen S., et al (2017) was done with almost the
same principle as the previous studies. However, in this study, Metal, Glass and Plastic wastes
are sorted with the use of an Arduino Uno that is based on ATmeg328 with 32KB flash memory
and 2KB of SRAM and 1 KB EEPROM. It also made use of Inductive proximity sensor to sort
out metallic material from non-metallic material according to the electrical principle of
inductance. After this separation, non-metallic wastes such as the plastic and glass will then be
separated with the use of Capacity proximity sensor wherein its sensors the difference between
the potential difference between the plastic and glass. Since this study made only used of simple
prototype, it recommended for it to be developed to a more complex and industrial use. [Rashmi,
2016]