Handheld Trash Sniffer
Disposing of food waste in the trash is bad because once the food scraps decompose at the landfill, it creates methane and other greenhouse gases. In California, there is a mandatory program to put food scraps in a specific bin but I wanted to see how many of my neighbors were actually disposing of food waste properly. The sniffer I built uses two sensors to measure decomposition byproducts (like CO2) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Higher CO2/VOC measurements indicated that food scraps were in a bin.
Sniffer Module Specifics
3.7V/1800mAh li-ion battery to power the microcontroller and sensors
12V battery pack to power the air intake fan
Adafruit featherwing microcontroller & featherwing LCD screen
SCD-30 temperature, tumidity, and CO2 sensor
SGP30 eCO2/VOC sensor
computer fan
3D printed enclosure
The sensors are situated below a guard that prevents direct air flow from hitting it (mfg recommended use). The enclosure works like a wind tunnel with a cap that has a built in computer fan with “nozzle”. The entire system is held in the trash can for a few seconds and the LCD displays the CO2, eCO2 and VOC measurements.
Sniffer Media
