Bay City, MI - The Bay City Times:
BigBelly solar trash cans rolling out in Michigan, and maybe Bay City
August 20, 2009 07:30 AM
... BigBellys are American-made, solar-powered trash compactors, which are being rolled out in Michigan next week by Waste Management Inc. ...
Tom Horton, a spokesman for Waste Management in Wixom, said his company is just beginning to roll out the BigBellys in Michigan.
The company plans a major announcement next week that a number of the solar compactors will be installed in the Metro Detroit area.
"The key thing about these units is they give the ability for communities to decrease the number of times they have to go by and empty a container," Horton said.
"The challenge for any municipal government in having public containers is you might have 100 of them in your community and there's probably 25 of them that get filled up all the time."
The first major use of BigBelly containers has been in Philadelphia, where 500 were recently installed to replace 700 regular containers.
Philadelphia officials project they'll save $875,000 a year by not having to check and empty the solar units as often, according to USA Today....
The BigBelly unit can be fitted with a feature to send an electronic signal to a pager or e-mail address when a compactor becomes full. Smells are minimized because the unit is self-contained, with a bag that is removed and replaced every time trash is collected.
"They're intended to be all weather, all time, all day long," Horton said....
"It's just about the coolest thing you can imagine," Horton said.