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Optara Labs

TrashTrace

Find what cities miss. TrashTrace combines Optara's camera sensors with edge AI to detect roadside waste, geolocate observations, and identify recurring hotspots — turning street-level observations into actionable environmental intelligence.

Status: FIELD TESTING

TrashTrace is being tested in real-world driving environments using Optara's Edge AI Field Unit and companion applications. Field testing is helping us improve detection performance, hardware reliability, and the end-to-end operational workflow.

1

Observe

Optara camera sensors capture street-level conditions as vehicles move through the environment.

2

Detect

Edge AI identifies roadside waste from the visual stream as observations are collected.

3

Locate

Relevant observations are associated with location and time, creating a spatial record of detected waste.

4

Understand

Observations across routes and over time reveal recurring hotspots and patterns that individual detections cannot.

5

Act

Operational intelligence helps teams prioritize where cleanup, inspection, or further attention is needed.

Optara Edge AI Field Unit deployed for TrashTrace field testing
Optara Edge AI Field Unit deployed during TrashTrace field testing.
TrashTrace detecting roadside waste during real-world field testing
Roadside waste detections captured during real-world field testing.

From detections to decisions.

TrashTrace analytics dashboard showing a hotspot map and detection history
TrashTrace analytics dashboard — hotspot map and detection history for a real set of field drives.

Observe → Aggregate → Prioritize → Dispatch → Measure

Request a TrashTrace pilot →