MIT’s Sensable City lab plans to attach wireless sensors to pieces of garbage to track them through New York, Seattle and London’s trash disposal systems. The project is intended to show the effects of throwing something out and highlight inefficiencies in garbage systems using impressive graphics requiring a better explanation than I could give you.

Somehow, organized crime never comes up:

The project could be considered the urban equivalent of nuclear medicine – when a tracer is injected and followed through the human body.

The project has a also has a blog full of multimedia, including photos of the sensor prototypes over time.