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In the short term, the ruthless pursuit of efficiency translates into the uncomfortable—and unsustainable—dichotomy of rising profits and falling employment. But the focus on efficiency is creating new business opportunities for smart companies.

At BigBelly Solar, a Needham, Mass.–based firm whose solar-powered trash compactors reduce the need for both labor and energy, sales doubled in both 2008 and 2009. “Cities and institutions like universities and park systems are eager to do more with less,” says CEO Jim Poss. Leasing 500 compacting units has allowed Philadelphia to cut weekly pickups from 17 to five, and will save it $13 million over 10 years.

BigBelly employs fewer than 50 people, but like many businesses in fast-growing markets it indirectly supports a much larger number of jobs. At Mack Molding, an Arlington, Vt., contract manufacturer, 35 workers are kept busy on two shifts producing compactors.

“When you add the employees at the more than 50 component suppliers, this work is supporting another 180 jobs,” says Joan Magrath, vice president of sales and engineering at Mack Molding. BigBelly compactors, which are entirely made in the U.S., have been exported to 25 countries. It’s a drop in the bucket. But thousands of startups and small businesses are trying to crack the markets developing at home and abroad.

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E. Lansing, MI – Oscar the Grouch may soon be homeless.

Replacing conventional trash cans and bins, Landscape Services has experimented with a trash compactor outside of Michigan State University’s Dairy Store for the past year. Landscape Services Coordinator Steve Frank originally discovered the device, called the Big Belly Solar Compactor, and soon advocated for its incorporation at MSU.

“I was just looking into solutions to the litter problem,” said Frank, explaining that the heavy traffic at the Dairy Store made keeping up with trash build-up difficult.

According to Frank, the compactor includes a 32-gallon container which can hold up to 200 gallons of compacted material. This promotes efficiency by reducing the amount of trips to empty the trash (and thus gasoline used) as well as the time spent by employees because it is easier to dispose of compacted trash. As if this was not enough, the unit also runs entirely on solar energy.

According to Landscape Services Manager Gerry Dobbs, the compactor has yielded tangible results. “It cut the number of visits to that site by 60 percent and the amount of time spent at the site by 50 percent. Also, the cost per year of labor involvement at the Dairy Store is now 10 percent of what it used to be.”

Thanks to the solar compactor’s success, it is now a part of the exterior recycling container policy and standards for MSU, and other units are being suggested for other high-traffic areas of campus. Gardener Diane Kennedy, who currently maintains the compactor, enthusiastically supports this idea. “I think it would be incredible and well worth the investment,” she said.

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