As the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. But who knew you could make money just by looking at other people’s trash? Out of Finland, Enevo is a company creating smart sensors to improve the logistics of the waste management industry, and just closed a EUR 200k angel round with Lifeline and four angel investors. In waste management the main cost is logistics: it takes a lot of trucks, hours and fuel to empty the tens thousands containers just in Finland alone. And the costs add up when the waste trucks are driving out to and dumping containers that are half-empty.
Enevo solves the problem by producing wireless sensor box called ONe Collect that is installed into waste container, sending info on the dumpster’s live status information as well as historical statistics about monitored containers, such as fill-up rates, estimated fill-up dates, collection dates, and seasonal variations.
Algorithms on back-end calculate then optimal driving routes for waste trucks, resulting in significant savings. Although the solution sounds simple, it has potential to cut some 20-30% of the total waste management cost, and provides the benefit of alerting municipalities before waste containers overflow.
Aside from the funding round, the company is also proud to announce that out of 97 companies, it was recently one of the top 25 startups selected in the Nordic Cleantech Open.
The service is intended to be used with either large underground waste containers or surface containers that can hold 1-10 m3 of waste or recyclables. I’ve often heard it said that today’s cellphones are more powerful than the Apollo 11 lunar spacecraft, and it’s remarkable that we may be saying the same thing about our dumpsters soon.
