Oakland is turning to AI drones to help solve its illegal dumping problem |
Trash is strewn next to Radio Beach in Oakland, Calif., on May 30, 2023. On Tuesday, city officials approved a pilot program that will allow drones to help identify hot spots for illegal dumping in Oakland.
Oakland is turning to artificial intelligence to hunt down one of its most visible problems, sprawling piles of trash illegally dumped across the city.
On Tuesday, the Oakland City Council approved a six-month pilot program that will allow AI-powered drones to sweep across the city and locate illegal dumping. District 1 councilmember Zac Unger, who helped spearhead the initiative, told SFGATE that the council also approved increasing dumping fines. (Currently, fines reach up to $1,500 for three-time offenders.)
Article continues below this ad
The $150,000 program will use drones from Aerbits, a San Francisco AI startup, to fly over areas of the city at about 120 feet and locate piles of abandoned trash, according to city documents. The drones will cover 1,440 linear road miles during the pilot program throughout 72 scheduled flights, according to the City Council’s presentation.
The drones will not be used for enforcement purposes, but they will help identify the dumping hot spots in the city, Unger said. Because the reporting surrounding the dumping is not always accurate, sometimes crews show up without the proper tools to clean up the trash. But the aerial cameras can help officials accurately map where the garbage is, determine what kind of waste it is and send the proper resources.
“A crew will go out with a truck that is equipped to pick up, let’s say, tires, and they actually find out that it’s a bunch of refrigerators that have been dumped there. And so then they’ve wasted a trip because they brought the wrong equipment,” Unger said. “We can send the right crew the first time, and that saves a lot of time and effort.”
Fixed cameras will be placed at the dumping hot spots to issue fines using license plate numbers, similar to a parking ticket, Unger said.
Article continues below this ad
The drone images will “exclude private property and personally identifying information,” according to the city’s report, and if any images capture a person’s face, the image will be deleted and not retained, according to city documents. The drones also do not record video or audio or use license plate or facial recognition.
Unger said one of the biggest challenges in cleaning up the city streets is that not all illegal dumping is reported equally. According to the city presentation, reports submitted through the OAK311 hotline are more concentrated in wealthier neighborhoods, even though there is often less trash.
“There are some folks in some neighborhoods who have the time and the computer literacy and the wherewithal to do a lot of reporting, but that doesn’t necessarily correlate with where the majority of the dumping is,” Unger said. “… This will actually help us go after where the majority of the dumping is, not the majority of the reporting.”
According to the city’s presentation, Oakland spends $24 million per year on illegal dumping. It’s been a problem for years, with debris including tires being thrown onto city streets.
Article continues below this ad
“There is no one single magic solution to our trash problem in Oakland,” Unger said. “It’s going to take a lot of attack lines and from different directions.”
He said the long-standing problem has become so dire that even people from outside the city have come to Oakland to dump their trash. He said the belief that Oakland officials “are not enforcing” laws has encouraged people to “take advantage,” which is a perception he aims to reverse.
Got a tip? Send us the scoop.
Got a tip? Send us the scoop.
“We cannot let people use Oakland as a dumping ground,” he said. “We have people coming in from outside of the city contractors using our city as a free dump, and that is unacceptable, and it has so many negative knock on effects.”
Article continues below this ad
Unger said he wants to emphasize to illegal dumpers that “we’re coming to get you.”
“If you think you can get away with this, that was a different era, and we will find you,” he said.
— Ex-nanny arrested at SFO after alleged fraud targeting Marin family— Yale alum allegedly runs into Bay Area Tesla shop with shotgun— Calif. made them rich on paper and now they’re stuck in place— Woman found dead off Calif. viewpoint sparks mystery 2,000 miles away
Sign up for daily SFGATE breaking news alerts here.