What to do with stinky kitchen waste when the garbage truck doesn’t arrive until the evening? Given Taiwan’s garbage collection system, this has long been a common dilemma here. But in the northern city of Hsinchu, at least, this may soon be a problem of the past. The city has invented a smart food waste dumping system so that residents can get rid of kitchen waste any time they want.

The Hsinchu City government is conducting a trial run of a smart kiosk that collects kitchen waste at all times of the day. All you have to do is swipe your metro card and the kiosk opens its food waste disposal unit.

The kiosk keeps the temperature inside at below 10 C, and an electric airtight door suppresses any odors. Once the waste receptacle is full, it will remotely notify a waste collecting company to come and empty it out.

Once picked up, the waste will be quickly turned into fertilizer, thereby giving something back to society.

The Environmental Protection Administration plans to assess the effectiveness of this system. Hopefully the smart system will eventually be rolled out nationwide and increase the rate at which food waste gets recycled.