ReWaste F- Digitalization in waste management

As part of a research project, universities in Upper Styria are working on a smart solution for waste management. Since 2017, the University of Leoben and other partners from industry as well as various funding agencies such as FFG have been working on this topic. The Institute of Industrial Management is also making its research contribution and providing support in finding suitable technologies. Within the framework of ReWaste F (Recycling and Utilization of Waste for the Future), employees of the Joanneum University of Applied Sciences and students have already developed possible sensor concepts for the detection of contaminants in recycling plants. Some of these concepts have already been validated with test setups. A second contribution of the FH Joanneum is the research and application of a suitable standard to network the individual aggregates of a waste treatment plant, to ensure their communication and to control them via a process control level. At the Institute Industrial Management, as successor of Barbara Mayer, Sabine Hanusch now leads the project together with Helmut Ropin and elaborates the results with her team consisting of Katharina Lackner and Stefan Wallner.
The results from the research areas are to be applied to the MAYER RECYCLING GmbH plant in the future together with the University of Leoben, because the goal of the entire project is to enable more efficient waste processing by means of digitalization ("Smart Waste Factory"), as this has enormous current relevance due to the scarcity of raw materials.