Background:

The Sault Ste. Marie Household Hazardous Waste Depot (HHW) collects household materials such as batteries, oil, acids, and other substances that are not permitted for disposal with regular waste, and holds the materials until they are picked up by a contractor to recycle or incinerate, etc. There is no gate fee required as the depot runs a free service, however there is a requirement for the depot to report on what has been dropped off. This consists of annual reporting to the Ministry of Energy, Conservation and Parks using the information gathered with the app.

The Challenge:

Up until 2022, the HHW depot was recording information about materials dropped off on paper-based forms. The pads of paper forms had to be special ordered, expensive, and the results were not easily interpreted for peak-time analysis or quantity of materials dropped off.  Storing the paper forms for future reference was also a challenge.

The Solution: 

We created an app that allows the employees of the HHW depot to use tablets and either a WIFI or data connection to gather information about the materials dropped off, allowing for easier reporting and analysis of materials. It also allows for employees to investigate the originating postal codes in a dynamically created feature layer where the household is located, using a custom Postal Code Locator service tailored to Sault Ste. Marie. 

More features of the app include a way to flag suspected commercial drop offs by vehicle license plate number (this depot is for household use only) and to also track waste that is rejected.

(Created using ESRI’s ArcGIS Survey 123 and ArcGIS Online).