Parks’ solar-powered trash cans designed to cut costs, emissions

Indy parks are a little greener this summer.

New to 53 city parks are solar-powered trash compactors that, once activated in the next couple of weeks, will wirelessly monitor when they need to be emptied.

By collecting trash only when the compactors are full, Indy Parks expects to cut fuel expenses, reduce emissions and allow for better allocation of maintenance staff, said Steven Hardiman, spokesman for the Department of Public Works.

“We have high expectations for these helping to save costs,” Hardiman said.

He estimated the city will save $250,000 annually on trash collection and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent.

IndyParks … is testing them in smaller parks with less traffic, Hardiman said. Public Works will maintain the compactors.

Like a letter in a mailbox, trash is deposited in a closed, gray container topped with a solar panel. The solar panel absorbs ambient sunlight — which means it’ll work even if the trash unit sits in the shade — to power the compactor. The compactor is triggered by an electronic eye, which looks across the inside of the trash bin and signals when the trash fills up.

With the compactor, the solar-powered bins can hold five times as much trash as a normal barrel, Hardiman said.

That alone reduces the number of garbage pickups, he said, but the compactors also will be hooked to a central monitoring system so city workers can keep tabs on the fullness of the bins. If trash is emptied only when the bins are full, Public Works won’t have to spend as much time or gas on weekly collections.

And the enclosed containers should keep out smells and keep in trash, preventing animals or the wind from scattering litter.

“At this point, we don’t see any downsides at all,” Hardiman said.

Earlier this year, 10 BigBelly Solar Compactors were installed in downtown Bloomington, paid for by federal grant money.

“They work, and they work well,” said Shelby Walker, director of sanitation for the city of Bloomington.

They’re high-efficiency and low-maintenance, he said. The city removed 18 regular bins in high-traffic areas… Walker said he wishes all the city’s bins were BigBelly compactors.

At some Indianapolis parks, where the solar-powered receptacles are just a few weeks old, passers-by, such as Laura Vosahlik, 24, didn’t know how the boxy trash can worked.

But once she found out, she liked the idea.

“It’s going to clean up the park a lot,” said Vosahlik, who often walks her dog through Canterbury Park off the Monon Trail in Broad Ripple.

She’s also trying to become more environmentally conscious, “so this seems like a good start,” she said.

[Original article no longer posted on indystar.com]

Read the City Press Release (PDF)

See the Indy Parks Foundation post on Facebook

See the WXIN-TV report