| The fast expansion of cities has increased the pressure on municipal waste management systems, which has made the shortcomings in current monitoring practices more visible. While UAV-based urban waste detection has shown potential for improving coverage and visibility, current approaches often remain fragmented and difficult to use in real municipal workflows. This work presents a benchmarking study of UAV-based urban waste detection conducted under realistic, non ideal operating conditions, primarily reflecting urban settings in India. Instead of focusing only on detection accuracy, our study highlights existing research and system level gaps, particularly the lack of integration between waste detection outputs and practical decision making processes. The findings show that waste detection is frequently treated as a standalone technical step, with limited support for converting detected waste information into forms that are easy for authorities to interpret and act upon. From these observations, the paper emphasises the need for an integrated pipeline that connects aerial waste detection with structured processing and human readable reporting, enabling clearer insights and so that the information produced is better aligned with real operational needs. |
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