Indicium Dynamics and Digital Matter bring real-time trade waste monitoring to water utilities.

Trade waste is a liquid by-product from industrial, commercial, or business activities discharged into a wastewater system. Unlike household waste, it often contains substances such as fats, oils, grease, chemicals, heavy metals, nitrogen, phosphorus, and suspended solids. If not properly managed, these contaminants can damage sewer networks, disrupt water treatment processes, harm the environment, and pose a threat to public health.  

In many countries, including Australia, environmental protection laws require strict controls on contaminants in trade waste discharged into waterways and sewer networks. Breaches can result in significant financial penalties and reputational damage, especially when incidents pollute river systems, force closures of community spaces, poison crops, or trigger sewer overflows. 

Traditional methods for monitoring trade waste remain largely manual, requiring time-consuming, expensive sampling and analysis. Manual monitoring makes it difficult for technicians to ensure consistent sampling techniques, protect samples from degradation, detect hidden pollutants, and avoid personal risk from exposure to hazardous materials and environments.  

To meet compliance obligations and protect infrastructure and the environment, water utilities and operators need a safer, more efficient, and reliable solution to monitor trade waste and help their customers make informed decisions about when trade waste quantity and quality is acceptable for release. 

Indicium Dynamics pairs IoT innovation with Digital Matter’s Hawk Pro to build a scalable, sustainable, real-time trade waste monitoring solution. 

Drawing on its expertise in sustainable and efficient water management solutions, Indicium Dynamics designed a fit-for-purpose IoT solution for real-time, remote monitoring of trade waste.  

At the core of the solution is Digital Matter's Hawk Pro Data Logger device, a plug-and-play sensor hub that collects, aggregates, and transmits data from various sensors to Indicium Dynamics' cloud-based data platform. The platform converts sensor data into user-friendly dashboards, providing stakeholders with a clear, at-a-glance view of trade waste quality and quantity. 

A modular IoT device, the Hawk Pro is highly customisable by using interchangeable cards that connect with different sensor types to meet various communication needs. For example, Indicium Dynamics configured the Hawk to work with 4-20mA and/or MODBUS sensors, enabling the solution to monitor flow levels, pH, temperature, and electrical conductivity in trade waste. The Hawk Pro connects directly to cellular networks, simplifying and accelerating large-scale, remote deployments without requiring additional hardware or network infrastructure.  

"We chose the Digital Matter Hawk Pro to connect our IoT trade waste solution because of its unmatched flexibility. Its modular inputs, including Modbus, analog, and pulse signals, let us adapt the device for various applications. The optional solar and backup battery support added valuable deployment versatility, and the LTE connectivity eliminated the overhead of maintaining gateways.  

Overall, the Hawk's open architecture, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness let us customise it easily into our solution and reporting platform. During the project, we appreciated Digital Matter's responsive support, which gave us the confidence to deliver a viable solution to help our customers operate more efficiently and sustainably."

Real-time trade waste visibility helps water operators cut costs and risks, improve operational efficiency and protect the environment. 

Since launching its IoT trade waste monitoring solution, Indicium Dynamics has deployed Hawk Pro devices to replace slow, manual, costly sampling with real-time, data-driven insights. Continuous visibility into trade waste helps utilities and operators optimise operations, reduce regulatory risk, minimise environmental impact, and improve decision-making.  

"Without IoT, water utilities and operators need to manually monitor trade waste samples. With the Hawk Pro powering an always-on, remote monitoring IoT solution, they now have real-time visibility into the quantity and quality of trade waste outflows. On-demand access to high-resolution data lets organisations track discharges closely, stay within trade waste allowances, avoid fines, and, most importantly, prevent harmful substances from entering the wastewater system. We’re excited to explore further ways to use Digital Matter devices to monitor assets, such as self-contained weather stations, to help our customers operate more efficiently and sustainably."