A GPS (global positioning system) used by Harrow Council to track which rubbish bins its employees have emptied has won two awards in the space of a week. Two awards were given to the council last week for the new GPS technology installed in refuse trucks.

It tells managers and call centre staff what bins have been emptied and where they still need to go.

This followed a first win for the system in January of an E-Gov Award.

Tuesday's win was for the Contact Centre Innovation Award at the Professional Planning Forum, and on the following day Harrow Council picked up the Transformation Award at the Guardian GC Awards 2010, to complete a hat-trick of gongs for the technology.

It was introduced in October 2009 and is aimed at saving the council £90,000 in the first year and an expected £3.1million over 10 years.

Each lorry cab has a touch-screen computer with GPS link and communication between crews, managers and Harrow's contact centre.

Crews collect waste and log when they finish each road.

They log 'contaminated' bins which cannot be collected, such as plastic bags in a garden waste bin, and receive 'missed bin' requests from residents.