The installed base of smart waste sensors is expected to reach 1.5 million worldwide in 2023, compared to 379,000 in 2018, according to a recent study by IoT research firm Berg Insight.
The Swedish firm highlighted that the smart waste sensors market is forecast to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.8% during the period.
The wirelessly connected sensors can either be pre-integrated into waste bins and containers or retrofitted into existing ones.
Europe currently accounts for more than 50% of the installed base. Markets such as the Benelux, France, the U.K., Spain and the Nordic countries have seen particularly positive market developments, according to Berg Insight.
The analyst firm also noted that the smart waste management market in North America is less developed in comparison to the European market and had an installed base of 85,000 smart waste sensors in 2018. The “rest of world” market will have the highest growth of 36.5% and reach nearly half a million installed sensors by 2023, the firm projected.
According to the research firm, the world’s leading smart waste sensor technology vendor in the third quarter of 2019 was U.S.-based smart bin provider Bigbelly, which had a global market share of 13.3%. Finnish Enevo and Chinese Dingtek Technology shared second place. Enevo is a leading player in Europe and North America, while Dingtek has a strong position in the Chinese domestic market. Other important smart waste sensor technology vendors include European companies such as BH Technologies, the SUEZ subsidiary SigrenEa, Waste Vision, Sensoneo, SAYME, FarSite Communications, Nordsense, EMZ Environmental Technology; Compology and OnePlus Systems from the U.S.; Evreka from Turkey and Ecube Labs from South Korea.
The top ten vendors accounted for more than 60% of the global installed base of smart waste sensors. Many vendors have chosen to focus on specific customer segments such as public litter bins, commercial waste containers or textile recycling banks.
“The interest in smart waste sensor technology has increased significantly over the past 18 months and is now increasingly seen as an integral part of any smart city strategy,” said Levi Ostling, IoT analyst at Berg Insight.
Cellular 2G/3G/4G technology has prevailed as the dominant connectivity option for smart waste sensor installations, accounting for around three-quarters of the global installed base in 2018. LPWA technologies such as NB-IoT, LTE-M, LoRaWAN and Sigfox are, however, establishing themselves as attractive alternatives due to their lower power consumption, which is essential for the performance of smart waste sensors, as they are mainly battery-powered, Berg Insight said.
LPWA communications technologies accounted for around 20% of the global installed base of smart waste sensors in 2018. The share is expected to increase to more than 50% by 2023. “The transition to LPWA will significantly improve the overall feasibility of smart waste sensor investments and prompt a growing number of large-scale initiatives in the near future,” Ostling added.
