Understanding the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Chip in Your Cart On July 5, Charlotte residents will begin a new recycling experience – the first change in the City’s recycling program in nearly 20 years. The City’s improved recycling program provides several benefits for residents, including the ability to recycle more materials, and a larger, wheeled cart offering ease of use for transporting their recyclables to the curb. The cart also features a lid that helps reduce littering caused by wind driven materials. The program is projected to save taxpayers more than $43 million dollars in the next 10 years. These are not the only improvements coming in July. When the City launches the Recycle It! program in July, they will also begin using a new technology – radio frequency identification (RFID). What is a radio frequency identification chip? A small electronic device incorporated into a product for the purpose of identifying and tracking pre‐
determined categories of information. The information being captured on City recycling carts consists of the cart serial identification number, cart location. Does my recycling cart have an RFID chip? If so, why do we need RFID chips on our carts? Yes. Your new city‐issued green recycling cart contains an RFID chip. These chips will help the City track and manage cart inventory (this includes tracking cart maintenance expenses); improve operational efficiency; and better focus recycling and environmental education. All City‐issued carts – garbage and now recycling – have serial numbers that allow us to track the cart. These serial numbers are printed on the front of both the garbage and recycling carts and are assigned to an address when they are delivered. This ID number is also embedded in the RFID chip in each recycling cart and the home address to which the cart is assigned. The City has always maintained this information; however, the information has been managed and maintained manually. The manual process is labor intensive and leaves room for error. The chip allows the information to be collected and stored automatically. What information is being tracked by the chips? The chip only tracks the cart serial identification number, cart location. The RFID chips cannot determine what is inside a citizen’s cart, how much the cart weighs, the resident’s name, or any other type of information beyond that mentioned above. What will the City do with the information collected? By automating the current manual data collection process, the City will be able to better manage cart inventory, cart maintenance expenses, route design, and better focus recycling education to a geographic area to increase participation and reduce contamination of recycled materials. We will work to increase participation in the program to maximize the use of container capacity and collection manpower. Participation data will allow City staff to focus educational initiatives in low‐participating geographic areas. Recycling is strictly voluntary for single‐family households in Charlotte, but the City wishes to strongly encourage residents to recycle and make it easy for them to do so. Will the information collected by the chips be public information? No. The chip data is not public record per GS 132‐1.1 and will not be shared outside the City or with other City departments. How long will the RFID data be stored by the City? Three years. The City has adopted a Municipal Records Retention Disposition Schedule and the schedule suggests that data like RFID be kept for three years. Other data, such as cart location assignment information will need to be available for asset management purposes as we track inventory of carts used and maintained. Will the data be treated securely to protect the privacy of City residents? As noted above, the data is protected from disclosure as a public record.