A one year pilot project on standards for waste management services in the UK’s local authorities is making available its code and documentation under an open source software licence. The project has delivered its final business case report this month, estimating that waste data standards could drive millions of savings for local authorities.
“Use of a waste data standard could drive a total of GBP 505 million (about EUR 645 million) in savings for English local authorities over a 14 year period”, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) writes in its report.
About a quarter of that could be realised in the first 7 years. “We estimate that individual councils could save between GBP 117,900 and GBP 219,255 annually.”
Last summer, the pilot project began aggregating existing taxonomies that describe waste management services and started working on data model and application programming interfaces (APIs) that could use these lists in applications used in customer service systems, websites and garbage trucks.
Waste savings
Combined, the three components will help local authorities improve their waste management services. Savings are generated because of easier procurement procedures for local authorities, and improved and faster reporting on waste management.
It will also make it easier to develop software services. Reports by garbage collection truck can be handled instantly. That will help save time and effort in resolving questions from citizens calling a council to know why their wheelie bin was not emptied.
Recycle licence
All code and documentation is published on GitHub under the MIT licence. Also available is a demo of this API, adapting it to two different systems. The API is being tested by Luton Borough Council and its in-cab technology service provider. Mackay is also testing the API with a second in-cab technology provider.
“All the content is published as open source”, says Paul Mackay, technical lead for the DCLG Local Waste Service Standards Project. “Luton council is shortly planning to publish as open source a form implementation that they have developed.”
The project focusses on standards, Mackay adds. “Over the long term, the intent is that suppliers implement the API in their systems.”
More information:
Final business case for local waste services
Blog post by Paul Mackay on waste management standards
Collaboration for local service transformation: Lessons from the Local Waste Service Standards pilot (video)