Rubicon®, a software platform that provides smart waste and recycling solutions for businesses and governments worldwide, announces that the company’s smart city technology suite, RUBICONSmartCity™, has been listed in Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards for 2021 in the AI & Data and Spaces, Places, and Cities categories. The list honors the businesses, policies, projects, and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to pursuing innovation when it comes to solving health and climate crises, social injustice, or economic inequality.
RUBICONSmartCity is a technology platform that helps city governments run faster, smarter, and more effective waste, recycling, and municipal fleet operations. RUBICONSmartCity helps city governments ensure every resident’s trash and recycling is collected on their scheduled day, meaning no missed pickups. It also documents litter, bulky waste, and illegal dumping with photos, thus ensuring that these piles are cleaned up in a timely manner. It reduces recycling contamination, so cities can sell their recyclable commodities for as much money as possible, and it reduces the cost of collection by ensuring trucks are taking the most efficient path to collect waste and recycling. Finally, it also equips these vehicles—which go up and down every street in every city at least once a week—with capabilities to look for critical infrastructure and quality of life issues that can plague communities, helping our city partners deliver proactive government and equitable public service across all zip codes.
“I am thrilled that RUBICONSmartCity is being honored in the AI & Data and Spaces, Places, and Cities categories for this prestigious Fast Company award,” said Michael Allegretti, Chief Strategy Officer at Rubicon. “One of the overarching goals of Rubicon’s smart city technology is to make neighborhoods into greener and smarter places to live and work, and this recognition is further proof of how RUBICONSmartCity is making the world a better place, one community at a time.”
In the City of Kansas City, Missouri, the implementation of RUBICONSmartCity in the City’s fleet of 80 sanitation vehicles that service approximately 160,000 locations delivered over two million dollars cost savings and a 17 percent increase in citizen satisfaction with solid waste collection. In the City of Spokane, Washington, Rubicon’s smart city technology saved the City an estimated $25,000 in annual printing costs and helped to bring in approximately two million dollars in revenue each year from extra set outs. And in the City of Montgomery, Alabama, Rubicon’s software helped drivers document over 57,000 issues along their routes during the pilot period alone—and Rubicon’s data showed that if the City were to reduce its routes by just five, taxpayer savings could total approximately $375,000 per year.
“There is no question our society and planet are facing deeply troubling times. So, it’s important to recognize organizations that are using their ingenuity, impact, design, scalability, and passion to solve these problems,” says Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company.