The Politics of Open Infrastructures - 5. The Future of Urban Waste

5. The Future of Urban Waste: From Closed Systems to Open Waste Data Infrastructure 1

Celina Strzelecka

©2026 Celina Strzelecka, CC BY-NC 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0528.05

1. From Waste to Data: Infrastructuring Urban Refuse

This chapter opens with a close examination of Poland’s Digital Urban Waste Tracking System ( DUWTS), a smart waste management system deployed in a small Polish municipality. 2 Through this empirical case, I explore how digital infrastructures transform waste into data—and what political and social implications this transformation entails. This matters politically because digital waste systems do more than track refuse: they configure new relations of responsibility and control between residents, municipalities, and private platforms.

In a small Polish municipality, the journey of household waste begins not with disposal, but with labelling. Residents must affix a unique QR-coded sticker to each waste bag before depositing it in large, electronically controlled ground containers. These containers—installed in clusters known as ‘hubs’—are equipped with digital scales, motion sensors, cameras, and QR readers. Upon arrival, residents scan the QR code linked to their household. The container verifies the code, opens the lid, and, once the bag is deposited, records its weight. The lid then closes automatically. This seemingly mundane gesture triggers a series of technical processes that transform physical waste into structured data.

Each interaction generates multiple data points: the time and location of the disposal, the type and weight of the waste, and the identity of the household (linked via the QR code). This information is transmitted via the Internet of Things (IoT) to a proprietary cloud-based system operated by a private company contracted by the municipality. The data are compiled into individual digital profiles—quantitative representations of each household’s waste behaviour—which are accessible to municipal administrators through dedicated dashboards, and to residents via a mobile app.

The system operates in three distinct phases. First, data is generated: residents interact with the smart infrastructure, producing timestamped waste records. Second, data is centralised and analysed: proprietary servers process inputs to generate statistical summaries, trend projections, and visual indicators of compliance or anomaly. Third, data is visualised and fed back: user-facing apps simulate pay-as-you-throw billing, display comparative rankings, and encourage behavioural adjustment. Throughout, access to raw data remains tightly controlled by the technology provider, despite official claims that it ‘belongs to the municipality’ (Interview with technology company employee, June 2023).

Yet this data infrastructure does not operate independently of municipal workers. Municipal employees remain essential to its operation, particularly when residents fail to comply—forgetting to scan codes, placing noncompliant bags outside containers, or mis-sorting waste. In such cases, staff must open containers, inspect contents, identify offenders, and document infractions. Despite promises of automation, their work is often physically demanding. As one municipal worker remarked while inspecting waste in a DUWTS container: ‘They told us that working in the municipal office would be office work, not digging through garbage’ (Field notes, July 2024).

What unfolds here is a technologically mediated choreography of waste governance: a system that performs automation while relying on manual labour; that simulates fairness while obscuring systemic inequities; that collects data ostensibly for the public good while creating a form of proprietary lock-in. This chapter traces how waste becomes data—who produces it, who owns it, and who governs its flow—showing how systems like DUWTS, often labelled as *smart**waste systems*, redistribute control and accountability in ways that challenge existing norms of public governance. The central argument is that while DUWTS promises greater efficiency and behavioural fairness, it in fact deepens municipal dependence on proprietary platforms and shifts systemic responsibility onto individual residents.

This chapter thus examines not only the mechanics of waste tracking, but also the broader political and infrastructural implications of smart waste systems. While the DUWTS system already exposes some waste data to residents—through personalised rankings, price simulations, and behavioural nudges—this form of selective ‘ openness’ primarily governs individuals rather than enabling collective accountability.

Should waste data be open—and if so, under what conditions, for whom, and to what ends? As scholars of open data have argued (Tkacz 2012; Heimstädt 2017), transparency is not a neutral design principle but a contested political project—one that requires scrutiny, not celebration. Through the case of Poland’s Digital Urban Waste Tracking System ( DUWTS), I interrogate the tension between what might be conceived as digital efficiency and infrastructural closure. This means examining who defines what counts as openness, who benefits from it, and under what conditions it actually supports public accountability.

The entire infrastructure is developed and operated by a single private company, contracted by the municipality through a competitive procurement process. The contract, signed in 2022 and valued at approximately five million PLN, binds the municipality to a multi-year service agreement that includes system installation, server maintenance, software updates, and technical support. Although the municipality formally owns the data, it lacks direct access to the servers or the capacity to audit or reconfigure the system independently (Field notes; interviews with municipal officials; system demonstration, July 2024). Any changes to data access, functionality, or visualisation must be negotiated with the company. Municipal officials described this arrangement as a ‘vendor lock-in,’ noting that the costs and complexity of switching providers would be prohibitively high. As one official noted, reflecting on the municipality’s limited autonomy despite formal data ownership: ‘We have the data, but only in name—the company decides what we can actually see’ (Interview with municipal official, July 2024). This dependency reveals how public waste governance is increasingly shaped by proprietary infrastructures that remain opaque to those tasked with oversight.

2. From Personalised Waste to Simulated Pricing: The Making of Individual Responsibility

A key feature of DUWTS is its interface for residents—a mobile application that visualises personal waste data and simulates hypothetical billing scenarios. This personalised interface marks a significant shift in the governance of waste, moving from collective service provision to individualised monitoring and imagined pricing. The DUWTS mobile app’s hypothetical pricing display shows users what they would pay under a hypothetical Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) model with weight-based charges (see Figure 5.1).

Upon opening the app, residents can view the amount and type of waste they have disposed of, the frequency of their waste drops, and their individual statistics compared to other households within the same estate, municipality, and even across Poland. One municipal employee explained:

The user, meaning the resident, can see their data in the system: how much, when, and what kind of waste they’ve disposed of. [...] They can also compare their statistics, for example, with others—how they segregate waste according to their flat, block, estate, and municipality. [...] They can even see their ranking in Poland compared to other residents. (Interview with municipal employee, July 2024)