These guys are solar-powered, and should reduce carbon footprint

Boston, MA – When most of us think of a big-bellied trash compactor, it’s usually a brother or uncle who always seems to find space for the last slice of pizza on the table — even if three bites are gone and it’s resting in a soggy heap.

But the BigBellies showing up around campus over the next couple weeks are more robot than human. And unlike that male relative, they’re environmentally conscious. Operating on solar power, the new waste receptacles periodically compact trash, creating space for more. Once full, they send a text message alert to the company responsible for pickup, compacting multiple trips as well as the garbage, thereby saving fuel. What’s more, the collection company can view a digital map indicating which bins around campus are ready to be picked up, and plan the least wasteful route.

“We think these will reduce our carbon footprint substantially,” says Dennis Carlberg, the University’s director of sustainability. “Theoretically, we can reduce that by 80 percent.”

As a part of a pilot program, 20 of the receptacles are arriving; 10 will be accompanied by a recycling container for bottles and cans, which does not use the compacting technology. Each BigBelly compactor is estimated to have five times the capacity of a regular dumpster with similar dimensions.

The BigBelly compactors are cutting edge, but no longer experimental. For the past year and a half, three have been in use on campus, although those were not equipped with the text message alert feature. Carlberg says his office wanted to make sure the compactors worked as advertised before investing in more and that he is satisfied.

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(Click on the graphic to learn how BigBelly solar compactors save fuel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions).

Philadelphia, PA – The grant, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – the economic stimulus package – is one of hundreds of energy-efficiency “formula grants,” based mostly on population, going to states, counties, cities and tribes. Grants will total $2.7 billion.

The grant program sets specific core areas where the money could be used – building retrofits, conservation programs, and energy audits, for instance. Within that, Gajewski said, city officials picked projects “that were either under way and needed additional funding, or programs that were in the wings that we wanted to use as opportunity to get off the ground.”

The city’s 500 BigBelly solar-powered streetside trash compactors have proven so popular since being introduced last spring that the city plans to spend $973,000 to buy 260 more to place along commercial corridors.

Vandalism has been minimal – graffiti and a car hit is about the extent of it – and the city has saved fuel and employee time, because the bins have to be emptied twice a week instead of five times.

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Philadelphia, PA – Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today that Philadelphia, Pennsylvania will receive $14,108,700 in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support energy efficiency and conservation activities. Under the Department of Energy’s Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program, Philadelphia will implement programs that lower energy use, reduce carbon pollution, and create green jobs locally.

Philadelphia will use its Recovery Act EECBG funding to realize many elements of Greenworks Philadelphia, the city’s sustainability strategy, which calls for a 30 percent reduction in municipal energy usage by 2015, while also promoting energy efficiency in sectors such as transportation and waste management.

The city will replace nearly 400 traditional wire litter baskets with 260 solar compactors and 115 on-street recycling units. The compactors are self-powered and automatically compact the waste when the trash reaches a certain level. The program will need to provide schedule collection only twice a week, providing a significant reduction in the vehicle miles traveled by diesel-powered trash trucks.

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Give Cities Smarter Trash Cans

When we talk about making cities sustainable, bike lanes and rooftop gardens get mentioned more often than better trash cans. But in our downtowns, sanitation trucks make near-constant trips to collect garbage from unsightly, overflowing containers—adding to pollution and traffic. That’s why we need more BigBelly Solar Compactors.

Each BigBelly is a bin and compactor in one. By compacting trash on the street, the 32-gallon BigBelly can hold 150 to 200 gallons of trash. The BigBelly units are powered by solar panels—they’re entirely off the grid—and send text messages to the city when they’re full, so collection trips are only made when they need to be, instead of requiring a daily drive.

Last year, bulky trash accumulated so quickly in the wire containers throughout Philadelphia’s Center City that each one had to be emptied 19 times per week—almost three times each day. When Philadelphia introduced the BigBelly compactors downtown, each one only had to be emptied once a day. To fund the transition, Philadelphia used $2.2 million in grant money. Meanwhile, they’re estimated to save $875,000 each year—and free up city workers for other jobs.

Other cities have been experimenting with the trash compactors, too. Boston installed 42 of them in 2008, and they’ve been introduced in New York, Vienna, and Vancouver, among other places. With smart bins, waste collection doesn’t have to be wasteful.

LEARN MORE Watch a GOOD video on BigBelly trash compactors.

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Pasadena, CA – Pasadena is about to get more fancy trash cans.

The City Council approved a work order late Monday night to place 40 self-compacting solar-energy trash cans throughout the city, in addition to the 12 already on the streets. …

The trash bins, which first started appearing on Pasadena street corners in 2007, can compact 200 gallons of trash into one 60-gallon “neat” bag, said Gabriel Silva, the environmental programs manager with the city’s Department of Public Works.

Silva said the city will save $61,400 annually in reduced labor and fuel because of the trash cans.

The areas around City Hall and the intersection of South Lake Avenue and East California Boulevard are among the 40 planned installation sites for the trash bins, said city spokeswoman Ann Erdman.

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Pasadena, CA – Trash-collection “hotspots” that require frequent visits by public works crews will soon be outfitted with time-saving trash compactors that derive their energy from the sun.

Following a 2007 pilot program in which four solar-powered trash compactors were installed around the city, the City Council has voted unanimously to … purchase 40 more.

The BigBelly Solar Trash Compactors crush garbage automatically. They will be placed in areas that produce the most garbage and will only need to be picked up on a weekly instead of a daily basis.

“There’s a savings to be had because they require less frequent pick-ups,” Councilwoman Margaret McAustin said. “They were very successful and they were very well received, and because they can accommodate more trash they result in less garbage around the trash cans.”

The savings in labor costs will pay for the cans in about 3 years, according to Pasadena Public Works Director Martin Pastucha. The cans will also help reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions since garbage trucks will go out less frequently.

The unusual appearance of the BigBelly also gets people’s attention, Pastucha said.

“It does attract attention and in that regard it does attract people to it and so hopefully they’ll utilize it,” he said….

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See the Article in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Winston-Salem, NC – The university recently invested in two BigBelly Solar Trash Compactors. …  Made in the USA of 80-100% post-consumer recycled plastic and other environmentally-sound material, the first and only solar trash compactor operates entirely off-grid, powered only by visible, in-unit solar panel that operates in all weather, climates, and locations, even without direct sunlight. The university also purchased the integrated recycling units to provide on-site compaction of waste while promoting side-walk recycling.

The BigBelly Solar Compactors “make a high profile statement to our sustainability movement,” Jim Coffey, director of Landscaping Services, said. Plus, “it will pay for itself over time,” he added.

The trash receptacles have five times the capacity of standard trash cans but take up the same amount of space. That means that a single unit can hold up to 200 gallons of trash. By compacting trash on the collection site, BigBelly Trash bins eliminate four out of every five trash collection trips, reducing time spent on collection, fossil fuel consumption, green house gas emissions, and plastic bag consumption by up to 80%. An in-unit wireless monitoring system remotely alerts staff when a BigBelly unit is full, maximizing efficiency and minimizing resource waste. The enclosed design of the unit keeps odors in and rodents, birds, and other small animals out of the trash, preventing the unsanitary, unattractive, and potentially hazardous spread of waste.

According to BigBelly Solar, a single Trash Compactor unit will save the university anywhere from $1,300 to $18,000 dollars in trash collecting fees and negative environmental effects over its lifetime compared to a standard bin. Employment of BigBelly machines also contributes to LEED building credits that can be used to achieve LEED Silver Certification or higher.

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Pasadena Approves 40 Additional Solar “BigBelly” Trash Containers

Pasadena, CA – In 2007 the city of Pasadena participated in a six-month pilot project — conceived by Leadership Pasadena — to replace public trash receptacles with BigBelly trash receptacles/compactors powered entirely by the sun.

In spring 2009 six of the BigBelly solar compactor units were purchased… The return on the investment is gigantic: They reduce collection/service costs, including fuel and staff time, by more than 500 percent (regular trash receptacles are manually emptied at least once a day, six days a week), and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent.

They take up about the same space as ordinary receptacles but the capacity is five times greater. Each one is cordless, self-contained, self-charging, portable and aesthetically appealing, and automatically compacts up to 200 gallons of trash into one neat bag for easy disposal.

The six existing units are in areas throughout Pasadena identified as having the greatest need:

• Lake Ave at Green St
• Lake Ave at Howard St
• Colorado Blvd near Bonnie Ave
• Colorado Blvd at Marion Ave
• Los Robles Ave just south of Green St
• Holly St between Marengo & Garfield Aves

The goal has been to purchase several dozen more units, and that was achieved Monday evening at city council with the approval of the purchase of 40 more to be placed throughout Pasadena.

It’s all part of our commitment to provide a greener, healthier, more cost-effective waste management system for Pasadena, in keeping with our Green City Action Plan (www.CityofPasadena.net/GreenCity).

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Iowa State University has installed a new solar trash can outside of Curtiss Hall to improve sustainability as part of the Live Green! Initiative.

Ames, IA – Buying a soda and taking out the garbage aren’t necessarily universally viewed as “sustainable” activities, but some new gadgets on the ISU campus might change that perception.

The new devices have been introduced as part of the Live Green! Initiative to provide ways to conserve energy and promote green living, Director of Sustainability Merry Rankin said.  …

The BigBelly Solar Compactor is a trash receptacle fitted with a solar panel and a self-contained compactor that compresses garbage as the can is filled. According to the BigBelly website, the container needs to be emptied only once for every five times a similar-sized traditional trash can would be.

Les Lawson, manager of facilities maintenance, … said the city of Philadelphia replaced all of its traditional trash cans with the BigBelly compactors, and the city estimates it will save millions on garbage removal in the long run.

Facilities planning and management decided to invest in just one solar compactor as a trial run, and placed it in a high-traffic area on campus just outside of Curtiss Hall. The results already have been positive, as Lawson said his department used to empty the can once or twice a day, but now empty it only once or twice a week.

Lawson said despite positive feedback, his staff is going to wait and see how the machine holds up through the winter before it decides to invest in more machines.

Rankin said both the Vending Misers and the BigBelly Solar Compactor are both sustainability success stories, and she hopes that cities and businesses will catch on to the use of these technologies, as well.

“It just goes to show that in all of our activities, we can make a sustainable difference,” Rankin said.

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Washington, DC – Georgetown has installed twenty environmentally-friendly BigBelly solar trash compactors on campus as a part of an ongoing sustainability campaign.

Three BigBelly cans premiered at last year’s Green Fair on campus. Karen Frank, VP for Facilities & Student Housing, said that these initial containers “proved workable,” leading to the introduction of twenty more this year.

The BigBelly Solar Compactors may look futuristic and high tech, but the idea behind them is simple. As the trash in the container increases, the compactor within the container automatically turns on. Drawing on power from an attached solar panel, trash within the container is compacted to 20% of its normal size, Director of Media Relations at Georgetown University Andy Pino said.

By using the space within the container more efficiently, fewer trash collections are needed.  This saves fuel and energy costs associated with the extra trips for collection.  Recycling bins have also been attached to the BigBelly containers on campus.

“Please don’t call them trash cans,” Frank said.  “They are a lot more than trash cans. They are solar compactors collecting not only trash, but also recyclables.”

Jonathan Cohn, treasurer of Georgetown’s environmental club Eco-Action, agrees the containers mean more than just better trash collection. He said the BigBelly compactors make recycling easier for campus members.

“You have [an] image built in your mind of what the different options are, rather than having a random bin as your go-to source,” Cohn said.

During this academic year, Eco-Action will be focusing on better waste management habits, focusing on the line, “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Cohn said the next step is changing habits for the overall reduction of waste in addition to increasing recycling practices….

According to Frank, so far Georgetown has more containers than any other institution in the region.

Frank added that Georgetown’s carbon footprint has decreased by 16% over the past three years, with a goal of reducing its carbon footprint by 50% before 2020.

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