Fearghal Murphy

The Big Tech Trends in 2026 for the Waste Industry

Fearghal Murphy, Director, WIS

Technology development and adoption is continuing to grow in the waste industry. 2026 will see a major acceleration in the impact that tech is having on everyday operations for waste companies.  The aim of the presentation to is bring awareness to solutions that are on market (or coming online in the near future) that attendees may not even be aware off. I will look many different areas and show what key tech is changing how these silos will operate. These include landfill, MRF, Hauling etc. It will go over tech that is involved in material separation, gas detection, scales operations, contamination detection, hazard identification (issue prevention). As someone who engages with many different companies, I will be showing a cross section solutions from many different companies. The format of this presentation will have more visuals and videos that show the various tech in operations. It gives a topline view but I avoid drilling down to tech specs as they generally loses the profile of attendees at such conferences.  The key areas I cover are MRFs, Landfills, Scales / weighing, Verifcation of service  Customer onboarding and CRMs, Gas creation and management, Recycling, Accuracy of material recovery, PFAS & Lychee. And one of the focuses that I want to draw people's attention to is 'Automation' and the huge gains to be made through a smart approach to tech adoption. 

Fearghal Murphy  is the Marketing Director with WIS. He also created the Talking Trash Youtube channel with Waste Advantage Magazine. He is also joining the NWRA communications committee in 2025.