jeddawson

The purchasing process is the barrier to entry. Municipalities are required to run a request for proposal on anything over ~10k. The RFP gets awarded to a PE owned manufacturer that then takes 4+ years to deliver. The municipality is locked into the vehicles they don't have so a new market entry needs to simultaneously establish a track record that qualifies them for being awarded an RFP and be able to wait out the purchase lag. Not impossible, but easier said than done.

Came here to say the same. Love seeing waste industry stuff at HN :)

Prairie Robotics (and similar) is another interesting take on the problem at the industrial scale. They are recognizing contamination as the waste is collected so the generators (houses/businesses) can be notified and educated.

Oh interesting, we generally don't go to WasteCon due to how focused it is on public sector since we have a better product fit with independent haulers (we do have several municipalities using our software though). Maybe we should be going though - always good to expand our horizons. Feel free to shoot me an email at: my first name at edisoncode.com

Thanks for sharing! If you go to Waste Expo (not sure if the big 3 send software engineers), it'd be cool to grab a beer and connect.

It really depends on the region since landfill rates vary wildly. In California: most likely yes since landfilling is relatively expensive, but again depends.

Waste haulers have always had a non-zero expense for recycling even when the processed materials had strong values. This is because the recycling has to be collected, transported, sorted/processed, then shipped again. Depending on the local market, regulations, incentives/subsidies, and distances involved for shipping it can very easily end up that a negative commodity price tips the scales in favor of landfilling.

Also, it's worth noting that some portion of the recycling stream will end up in a landfill regardless of the commodity price because it's contaminated (or just not a recyclable material) which has an impact on the overall cost per ton of recycling. Commodity prices going negative just push this to include more of the stream since it means only the "best" materials are economically viable for further processing and shipping. It's a balancing act that the industry has been doing internally for a long time, but now it's becoming a serious issue since large amounts of the recycling stream need to be landfilled if we don't want to spend a whole lot more than we already do on solid waste.

I work in the industry too. I'm always curious about what other's in this industry do when they're on HN, so if you're able can you share what you do?

As far as me: I'm the lead engineer for the mobile and api products at one of the major software providers for independent waste haulers in the US. My family owns and operates a hauling operation in CA, so I've spent my entire life surrounded by the inner workings of solid waste collection, hauling, and processing.

Not only that, but once they realized the message was sent in error they didn't have a simple way to correct course so there was a big delay between the realization and informing the terrified public.

Your suggestion of having multiple user confirmations coupled with a simple way to "cancel and correct" the notice would have likely meant this never became news worthy.

Sure sounds like it!

What is confusing is that the article still points to the UI as being a part of the problem though while they're now saying the employee intentionally sent the live message. Looks like the PR campaign is still trying to deflect blame or perhaps keep things just ambiguous enough that they'll be able to rush through some extra spending to "fix" the UI issue.

Hopefully more details will continue being shared and they deal with the organizational flaws instead of pouring blame on scape goats (software and individuals).

A bit of background: I've done thousands of hours of driving in rolloff trucks. They're semi's that load debris containers onto rails mounted over the chassis, haul the load to the transfer station/landfill, and deliver containers to job sites. Now I write software for the industry that I used to labor in.

I completely sympathize with the concerns in the article, but I have faith that Tesla will be able to overcome the challenges and some of them are perhaps not looking at the trucking industry "of the future" here's a good example:

The concern about a roll down window isn't that big of a deal. Doing rolloff meant crossing a scale multiple times per day where you'd exchange paperwork with the scale house attendant. I just completed a project that will keep drivers in the cab while at a landfill/transfer station if they have a tablet and the site is connected with our scale software. All of the interaction is done on a tablet while the truck is on the scale, the driver never leaves their seat or rolls down a window. If we're doing stuff like this for garbage, surely other trucking is going to be be digitizing these types of interactions and there are some nice big screens in the truck to make it easy.

The biggest concern that I share is the passing issue with a center seat, but that should be easily solved with a camera that shows a forward view when a turn signal is engaged. Two big screens mean you'd get a forward and all the blind spot views necessary to make a safe pass.

Side note: If Tesla wants to make a version for hauling trash, they could have an enormous impact on local emissions.

It'll be interesting how this works at homes with pets. I could see that being a major concern for a household that would otherwise be fine with an in home delivery. Will Amazon have couriers that are diligent enough to ensure an escaped cat is returned?

This is a really well done analysis of Rubicon's fundamental flaw and a huge reason why you see the main players all owning landfills. Trash is simply too profitable and easily corrupts any organization no matter how well intentioned they start out. That corruption has clearly hit Rubicon's sales team at least in some instances.

Not owning any of the "infrastructure" may seem like a huge positive from an cost standpoint, but I think they'll have to invest and re-invent a lot of the physical collection and processing tech in order to achieve their stated recycling goals.

Optimizing how/when waste is collected through modern software is a massive improvement and certainly we don't need to be collecting all materials every week. So there are huge gains to be had there from an environmental standpoint, but relying on infrastructure that is already optimized for moving trash to a nearby landfill is going to really hold back any effort to increase recycling rates.

I bet they can pull through this with all the funding they've received, but it sure does seem like they're a classic brokerage firm that happens to make an app for their haulers.