All Cleaned Up
The citizens of Vienna’s environmental commitment ensures that the Danube stays blue and beautiful and that the trees in the Prater park flourish year after year. When it comes to problem waste, the Viennese receive reminders by e-mail or even SMS before the neighbors get wind of any nasty smells.
Although the segregation of waste is an international trend, households have never been able to get rid of their hazardous waste as easily as is now the case in Vienna: Magistratsabteilung 48, the administrative department responsible for waste management, street cleaning and the fleet of vehicles run by the City of Vienna, uses the www.umweltinfo.wien.at. Internet portal, developed in conjunction with T-Systems, to offer its citizens the option of receiving a reminder by e-mail or SMS one day before the next collection. The collection vehicles do their rounds every 14 days, starting in the districts of Alsergrund and Donaustadt. The mobile collection service also represents an increase in the number of collection points from three to twelve. Included among the waste the vehicles will accept are mobile phones, batteries, medicines, syringes, mineral oil, used vegetable oil, acids and small electrical devices from car radios to electric toothbrushes.
The service is achieving impressive results: After only a short time, the scheme, which was firstly launched as an experimental pilot trial, has proven to be very popular. With some minor adjustments, the experiment is to continue until the end of 2008. With more than 50 stationary collection points for problem waste, 19 of them at the city’s so-called dumping grounds, Austria’s capital has an extremely tightly-knit network of disposal locations.
The solution has been good news for everyone: T-Systems has already won the “ebiz e-Government” award for the Internet portal developed in the Vienna region as part of the project entitled “PROSA – Mobile Problem Waste Collection by MA 48”. This award is presented each year to projects and companies that develop innovative services and schemes within government and use them to benefit the public. PROSA is part of the “Clean City” campaign initiated by Vienna’s environmental councillor Ulli Sima.
