Applying Computer Vision + ML to Biomedical Waste Management — Feasible or Overkill?

Hi everyone, I’m a CS undergraduate exploring a project idea for an AI-focused ideathon and would appreciate feedback from the ML community.

Problem Context Biomedical waste management in hospitals is still largely manual, especially in developing regions. Waste segregation errors (e.g., sharps, infectious waste, contaminated PPE) increase: Infection risk for sanitation workers Environmental hazards Non-compliance with biomedical waste regulations Most existing solutions focus on logistics and compliance reporting, not automated decision-making at the point of disposal. Proposed System (AI-Centric) The idea is an AI-driven biomedical waste management system with the following components: Computer Vision (Primary AI Component) Image classification of biomedical waste items (masks, gloves, syringes, sharps, etc.) Model candidates: CNNs / lightweight ViTs Goal: verify whether waste is disposed into the correct color-coded bin Rule + ML-Based Compliance Checking Encode biomedical waste rules (e.g., segregation policies) Detect and log violations automatically Predictive Analytics Time-series forecasting of waste volume per ward/day Identify high-risk zones based on waste type distribution Anomaly Detection Detect unusual waste patterns or potential illegal dumping Based on historical waste generation data The focus is on software and AI models. Hardware (camera, QR/RFID) is optional and abstracted for the MVP. Why This Seems Interesting (to me) Real-world safety-critical ML application Edge AI potential (low-latency, offline environments) Data-driven public health insights rather than just automation Open Questions / Feedback Needed Is CV-based waste classification practically reliable in real hospital environments (lighting, occlusion, mixed waste)? Would rule-based + ML hybrid systems make more sense than pure ML here? Any known datasets or prior research in medical/industrial waste classification? Is this a meaningful ML problem, or does it drift too much into systems engineering? I’m looking for critical feedback, not validation. Thanks in advance — happy to clarify any part of the idea.