In highly urbanized communities, one perennial issue that haunts these communities is on
garbage segregation and disposal. Similarly, schools located in these areas are no exception to
this problem even in special schools like Paranaque Science High School.
Segregating biodegradable and non-biodegradable wastes have become increasingly
difficult for most people. Most plastic wastes are not recycled, thereby increasing the number of
wastes polluting the waters and harming both terrestrial and marine life. It also blocks irrigation
which causes floods in streets. In fact, in Metro Manila, even if it is only raining, cities,
barangays and communities would already experience massive flooding. One can only blame
this to the improper disposal of wastes.
The study is significant because it seeks to provide answers regarding the use of
automated segregation waste bins that will help people dispose of their waste easily while
following the proper segregation process. The study also promotes waste segregation in the
school by giving not only the students a solution to the problem of waste segregation, but also
garbage collectors who will no longer need to segregate the waste collected.
The study focused on creating an automated waste segregation waste bin to be used in the
research locale using an Arduino. This device will be used at the school for further research and
may also be used in other schools in the city. However, the prototype device only focused on
sensing dry (paper), plastic (PET 1 bottles), and metallic waste (aluminum cans) one at a time.
ABSTRACT
In highly urbanized communities, one perennial issue that haunts these
communities is on garbage segregation and disposal. Similarly, schools located in these areas are
no exception to this problem even in Paranaque Science High School.
Due to the rising concern on garbage segregation that has gradually elevated into a solid
waste management problem, this study aimed to create a microcontroller-based garbage type
sensoring machine to address the waste management problem at Parañaque Science High School
and hopefully lessen the increasing amount of recyclable waste materials. Thus, the researcher
made a prototype of a microcontroller-based garbage type sensoring machine and tested its
effectiveness on three identified categories of wastes particularly dry, plastic and metallic waste.
The machine, powered by a regular direct current electrical source, tested the wastes one at a
time. Sensors (Infrared, Moisture, Capacitive Proximity and Inductive Proximity Sensors) were
used to detect the four categories of waste and Arduino was used as a microcontroller
programmed to perform the task. Each material tested corresponded to a color based on its
algorithm. A red LED lighted up when it detected plastic, blue when it detected dry wastes,
orange light for metallic types.
The results have shown the effectiveness of the machine in general and the sensors in
particular when it comes to categorizing wastes. In all five (5) trials done on each of the six
samples, the machine has identified the wastes with 100% accuracy. Therefore, it has been
concluded that the prototype Arduino-based garbage type sensoring machine is effective in
identifying dry, plastic and metallic wastes.
Keywords: Arduino, microcontroller, garbage type, segregation, sensors, sensoring machine
