SEATTLE (Recycling Monster): The City of East Lansing plans to implement an improvement project lasting six months. The program will make use of latest technologies to boost the city recycling rates.

The project will provide residents with information, education and feedback on ways to improve recycling. It will make use of a tagging mechanism, by which the bins will be tagged when they attempt to recycle non-acceptable items such as food, electronics, plastic bags etc. These materials deposited in the bins will be captured by cameras on trucks. The residents will be notified about it via email.

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Emily Freeman, recycler specialist at the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy noted that East Lansing will be the first U.S. city to make use of the advanced technology. It will be implemented with the assistance of a $15 million Recycling Quality Improvement grant, Freeman added.

The customized feedback mechanism will help to keep contaminating materials at bay, thus preventing potential damages caused by them to recycling equipment. Furthermore, it will result in significant improvement to residents’ recycling practices, which in turn will lead to processing of more volumes of acceptable recyclables.