Objective: To develop a two-stage object detection method based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to identify and classify solid waste, contributing to the creation of intelligent systems for society. Methods: The study utilizes a base network, ResNet 101, to generate convolution feature maps. In the first stage, a Region Proposal Network (RPN) is created on top of these convolution features, producing 256-dimensional feature vectors, objectness scores, and bounding rectangles for different anchor boxes. In the next stage, the region proposals are used to train a softmax layer and regressor, enabling the classification and localization of five types of solid waste, namely cardboard, glass, metal, paper and plastic. Findings: The proposed Faster RCNN demonstrates nearly real-time object detection rates. Experimental results reveal that the Faster RCNN with ResNet 101 and RPN achieves an accuracy of 96.7%, outperforming the Faster RCNN with a simple CNN, which achieves an accuracy of 86.7%. Novelty: Unlike traditional R-CNN, which relies on computationally inefficient selective search, the proposed Faster RCNN employs RPN, a small neural network sliding on the last convolution layer's feature map, predicting object presence and bounding boxes. This approach significantly improves efficiency compared to the exhaustive examination in R-CNN's selective search.