Blockchain, waste and the oracle
Blockchain has immense opportunities to create a world without waste.
By removing the need for centralised enforcement of trust, the blockchain revamps the market place by radically reducing transaction costs. The cryptoeconomics created by blockchain creates the opportunity to wipe out waste.
Blockchain also creates the opportunity for waste systems artists to create the conditions to remove waste. Deploying the features of micro-payments, radical transparency, dynamic pricing and reputation systems, blockchain enables elegant system design.
It creates a system of automatic trust.
Systems of trust need trusted inputs
However, for all of this to work, we need reliable and trusted information. The system of automatic trust created by blockchain is worthless if it doesn’t touch down to earth with a trusted person.
As explained in this sharply critical piece on blockchain, a completely trustworthy and transparent tracking of organic mangoes through the supply chain adds nothing if you can’t know that the mangoes were not sprayed with pesticides before they entered the supply chain. If the integrity of the initial input is in question in any way then the rest is bullshit.
This is where oracles come in. An oracle is the point where the digital blockchain interacts with the real world. It needs real attention if there is to be any chance of decentralised and automatic trust taking off.
A likely path for the waste system is that oracles will be as automated as possible, probably sensors coupled with artificial intelligence. This both minimises transaction costs and maximises the reliability of the data received.
Waste oracles
Sensors coupled with waste is not a new thing, but it will be a growing thing.
It will see sensors moving out of the Materials Recovery Facilities, where they are used to distinguish between different materials so that they can be sorted, and into bins.
We will see, as standard, fill level sensors that describe how full a bin is, and thus when it needs to be collected. This data will be coupled with systems to notify the waste collection network that the bin is ready for collection.
We will see, as standard, weight based sensors in bins and collection vehicles, jointly verifying transactions from parties with competing interests, and enabling micro-payments to the collector.
We will see, as standard, high value or hazardous waste consolidated into standard packages that enable automatic tracking of the container’s movement, such as the UNISEG container, ensuring that these materials go to the right destination.
We will see, as standard, sensors within bins that can sort waste at source into different streams to maximise their value, such as the Reverse Vending Machines that sort containers into glass and the light fraction (plastic and aluminium).
Oracles and waste systems artists
We will see oracles enabling the mass, the movement and the composition of unwanted materials tracked down to a micro scale, and right the way through the system.
We will see waste systems artists developing oracles that automatically reinforce trust in the interaction between the real world and the blockchain, providing multiple points of decoupled verification through the system.
Systems artists who understand that, at core, the blockchain relies upon fallible humans. Who come up with solutions that don’t place people in positions of temptation, in positions where they can abuse their power, in positions where ignorance or greed can undermine the entire edifice.
The need for good oracles is vitally important for a reliable blockchain. Oracles need to be both technically robust and designed to account for humans. They need to be deployed smartly, add value and create a surplus of trust — as an engineer might put, the oracles need to create trust redundancy.
In the absence of trust at every point in the chain, the system of trust collapses into the machinations ofthe cowboy operators. The cowboy undercuts the market, and so the worst behaviours determine the behaviour of the whole.
Waste is renowned for corner-cutting. Oracles coupled with the blockchain create the scope for a waste system to be designed that self-reinforces honesty. Not because people want to, but because they must, because the sensors remove the opportunity for dishonesty.
And once we reach that point, we are away.
Do you want to be a part of this conversation going on? Are you a waste system artist who wants to form the new? An investor who wants to understand the opportunity? A developer of sensors, or oracles?
I am developing up a “Blockchain and waste” conference, and am looking for fellow travellers. People who want to connect up ideas, to share how this is unfolding.
Because this conversation is global, the event will be in a central hub. Dubai or Hong Kong are my current thoughts. Someplace that is easy to get to for a global community.
Interested? Reach out. The best place, at the moment, is LinkedIn.
