The province is turning to technology to tackle waste.
Earlier this week, Innovation Saskatchewan unveiled new technologies that will track how much solid waste is generated in the province and where it all goes.
The hope is this will reduce solid waste dumped into landfills by 30 per cent by 2030.
“Our tech community has developed a tracking and reporting mechanism using artificial intelligence which can reduce the expense of landfill operations and lead to long-term environmental efficiencies,” Innovation Minister Tina Beaudry-Mellor said in a press release.
Innovation Saskatchewan first identified the two technologies in 2019 through an Innovation Challenge, which encourages provincial technology companies to find inventive solutions to public issues:
- Prairie Robotics integrated artificial intelligence and cameras to capture waste data in real time and automatically generate reports from across the province;
- Researchers at the University of Regina created a system, optimized for Saskatchewan’s extreme weather, to weigh moving vehicles.
Each winner received $10,000 in funding and a 16-week residency to develop their innovation in collaboration with government, before demonstrating the solutions in Regina.
According to the province, every Saskatchewan resident produces an average of 842 kilograms of trash per year. That is the second-highest total per capita among Canadian provinces.
