Cities and Towns
The Challenge: Reducing operating costs to balance the budget, while maintaining service levels and greening the environment.
In 2009, The City of Philadelphia was faced with a difficult but common issue. Mandated budget cuts had every department scrambling to figure out how to provide vital public services on fewer budget dollars. As with other departments, the public waste services division was targeted for a budget reduction, but there was also concern that any cutbacks in actual services levels would unleash a flood of public complaints. Still, the imperative to close the budget gap remained.
At the time, Philadelphia was collecting each public space trash bin in its city center 17 times per week across 3 shifts with a crew of 33 individuals – an expensive proposition in terms of labor hours, fuel expenses, high vehicle capital and maintenance costs, and tons of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Two years later, Philadelphia now services the same territory with 9 individuals on a single shift at an average of 2.5 times per week, producing $900,000 in year one operating cost savings and a projected $13,000,000 saved over 10 years – and citizens are saying that the streets look better than ever!
How did Philadelphia accomplish this dramatic reduction in cost while maintaining service levels? They looked at their labor, fleet, waste bin and other waste collection related expense areas as an interconnected “system” for the first time and replaced 700 conventional trash bins with 500 solar-powered compactors and 210 companion recycling components provided by BigBelly Solar – in concert with innovative software capabilities that allowed the city to better route and monitor vehicles and staff. Labor that was freed up by fewer required collections was used to staff the city’s aggressive recycling program and an energized citizenry applauded this “green initiative.” The BigBelly System marked the first public space recycling initiative in the city’s history.
Cities and towns both large and small can similarly benefit from taking a whole-systems approach to their trash and recycling collection operations, and analyzing how information-enabled visibility and control, in concert with solar-powered compaction and integrated recycling capabilities can save $millions in operating costs while greening their cityscapes.
Read more about the Philadelphia case study
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