EPA Research Partner Support Story: iOS application to real time track waste from rural communities to final disposal destinations
Partner: Rural Alaskan Communities via Solid Waste Alaska Taskforce
Challenge: Helping Alaska villages prevent contamination by efficiently backhauling waste
Resource: EPA developed an iOS application that collects live tracking data to ship waste from rural communities to final disposal destinations
Project Period: 2020 – 2022
Under a unique exception to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, many rural Alaska communities rely on unlined landfills to dispose of waste due to their remote locations. This approach is not appropriate for discarding hazardous waste, which can pose health and environmental risks when improperly disposed. Therefore, the waste must be transported long-distance to recycling destinations, a task that is often both expensive and logistically difficult. Over the past five years, EPA Region 10 (Pacific Northwest) has partnered with the Solid Waste Alaska Taskforce (SWAT), a joint collaboration between the state of Alaska, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Kawerak Inc, and Zender Environmental Health and Research Group, to develop a household hazardous waste backhaul service program, called Backhaul Alaska, to serve 160 communities located off of the national highway system.
“It is our hope that the work here can be applied to situations that other underserved communities of need face, multiplying the benefits of this outstanding partnership.” ‒ Zender Environmental Health and Research Group, Executive Director Lynn Zender
In March 2020, EPA ORD in collaboration with Region 10, was requested to support the Backhaul Alaska Program’s logistical efforts. The program was started as a pilot among 25 communities who needed a technology capable of scaling up the service statewide. One of the lingering challenges in the program was to develop a tool capable of supporting the removal of hazardous waste from rural Alaska. The tool would be used by communities in rural Alaska to log hazardous waste inventories in harsh environmental conditions. Central to all of this is tracking the materials―where they are from, where they are going, how they are packaged, how much of each type there are, and multiple other features. ORD used its prior experience developing similar tools for post-disaster events to quickly identify viable options for managing transportation and recycling logistics.
In just a few months, researchers enhanced the ESRI ArcGIS Survey123 program by integrating a barcode creator and an interactive dashboard. This allowed for seamless coordination with the program's inventory management and control procedures. SWAT was rolled out this tool to over 16 diverse communities, gathering initial inventories and obtaining feedback from field participants. Leveraging this feedback, EPA ORD fine-tuned the application for future backhaul events. The comprehensive framework and software were officially transitioned to SWAT in 2022.