> Before BigBelly, trash collectors had to clear out each can three times a day. Now they do so three times a week.<p>Living in center city Philadelphia, I can confidently say there are a couple unintended reasons these things may require less emptying: First, they're often so dirty that no one would want to grab the handle and open the door to throw trash in (I avoid them at all costs myself). Who wants to touch a trashcan even when it's clean? Second, if you're willing to grab the trash-encrusted handle and open the door, they're frequently jammed (or locked?) shut. On the few occasions where I was forced to use them because there were no other trashcans in sight, they were difficult or impossible to open.<p>So what do people do? They throw their trash on the ground, or they find a nearby trashcan that doesn't require contact to use. It's not unusual to see bags of trash sitting by these things with random garbage scattered around or on top of them.
Perhaps they've gotten their cost issues under control now, but this 2010 report from the Philly comptroller points out a whole bunch of problems: <a href="http://www.philadelphiacontroller.org/publications/other%20reports/BigBellyReport_7-12-10.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.philadelphiacontroller.org/publications/other%20r...</a><p>The report shows all sorts of maintenance issues that weren't accounted for. It takes longer to empty the bags on these units, for example.<p>I helped write a proposal to buy some of these units (albeit for a university campus, not streetside in cities), and we didn't find any significant cost savings. The appeal is the PR/image boost of having solar panels on every trash can. It looks like you're doing something sustainable, even if the numbers don't add up.
Has anyone run the numbers on the $900K?<p>I'm thinking, a million people actually live in the "served area" and maybe one public trash can per thousand people, so figure a thousand cans.<p>900K divided by 365 is about three K per day.<p>Combine a thousand cans and emptied three times per day and 3K per day budget and you end up with emptying a can costs a buck.<p>Lets say each garbage man works 8 hours and never slacks off and only takes 5 minutes average to drive from can to can and empty. Anyway I'm thinking a thousand cans times three times a day means 3000 drivebys times 5 minutes each means 15000 minutes expended per day with the old system driving to visit each can. Now realize that you're not going to save any drive time using the solar cans. But for the sake of amusement we'll try it. Now 15 kilominutes given an 8 hour working day results in thirty or so trash trucks and garbage men under the old (and new...) system.<p>Not sure if that's reasonable or not. A couple workmans comp cases and the next million empties are going to cost an extra buck, sure. On the other hand, its hard to imagine burning a dollar of diesel between each can. Philly just isn't that big. Then again, if each garbage man was paid $30K per year aka $15/hr and emptied about ten cans per hour, thats $1.50 per empty so factor in lower pay.. But how do you actually save money if you have to drive the same old route anyway?<p>Interestingly the economics of big city garbage pickup begin to make it look reasonable to simply have the post office mail trash to the landfill. Its not many orders of magnitude apart, and fundamentally junkmail delivery isn't all that far away from garbage pickup. So it should cost about a "postage" amount.
I can definitely see the value in savings. You have to wonder about the costs of maintenance and vandalism though.<p>In a city like SF, the people here quickly break these. The biggest problem would be the homeless breaking into the machines for cans and such. Hooligans would spray paint the tops because they think its cool to burn the world and be "individual".<p>Our cans are industrial strength green concrete batteries with heavy wire tops that allow for easy access.
Neat idea, neat solution, but the problem with articles like this is that it leaves out the other half of the equation - what was the marginal capital cost? Ie, if they cost $100M (for hyperbole's sake, which clearly they did not), saving $900K a year is a pretty awful return on capital.
> It's not a rich city, like New York or San Francisco, with cash to dump into sprawling bike lanes ... It's great that New York can install ... high-end bike-sharing programs. But ...<p>Bike lanes can bestow great economic benefits, from reduced healthcare costs to reduced pollution, fewer fatalities on the roads, less congestion, less stunting of children's intellectual development, etc. It's a shame people are ignorant of these benefits and choose to disparage bike infrastructure as an example of profligate and unnecessary spending (I recently read another article doing the same for London's cycling infrastructure plans over the next decade).<p>LSE Study: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/21/cycling-3bn-uk-economy-study" rel="nofollow">http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/21/cycling-3...</a><p>The Lancet: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jan/26/pollution.transportintheuk" rel="nofollow">http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jan/26/pollution....</a><p>USC Study: <a href="http://econweb.umd.edu/~ham/test%20scores%20submit.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://econweb.umd.edu/~ham/test%20scores%20submit.pdf</a> [PDF]<p>Economic Benefits: <a href="http://cyclingresourcecentre.org.au/page/cycling_benefits_economic" rel="nofollow">http://cyclingresourcecentre.org.au/page/cycling_benefits_ec...</a><p>More bike lanes, fewer gimmicky solar-powered trash cans, please.
> Before BigBelly, trash collectors had to clear out each can three times a day. Now they do so three times a week.<p>Sounds like a simpler solution would be to - use larger trash cans!
<i>trash collectors had to clear out each can three times a day. Now they do so three times a week.</i><p>Or you know they could have been smart about it, if the can wasn't full several collections in a row cut the pick up rate for that particular can. It starts being full/overloaded up the collection rate. Unless they are trying to say that this trash compactor is so good that it delivers 60x(3 times a day * 7 days a week * 3 weeks) space efficiency which doesn't seem likely. Maybe the new cans are larger?
I remember when these went in in Philly a couple years ago... often on well-shaded corners, not such a great match for solar powered compaction I'd think.<p>No doubt the new bins reduce the amount of waste collected, a) because nobody wants to touch the grotty handles, and b) it isn't possible to fit anything much bigger than a loaf of bread. However, could they possibly reduce the amount of waste generated? Where is the rest of it going?<p>Center City also has a crew of workers to operate noisy, walk-behind, teal street sweepers. I'm not sure if these actually pick up garbage, but at any rate it would be a delight to see them pull a tour of duty on Snyder Ave. instead of Market.
Saving a city the size of philly a million dollars doesn't sound like very much to me. How was the million saved? Is that accounting for the time and energy spent installing and maintaining these?
Interesting article, although it doesn't break down where the savings come from. It appears that most of the savings come from the compaction and communication about the cans being full. Given that solar is still often of questionable cost-efficiency (especially, I would imagine, on sidewalks in Philadelphia), I would think that not much of it comes from the solar aspect (unless the cost of hooking up the cans to power or changing a battery is high). The article doesn't really make it clear.
How do you reduce collections from 21 times a week to 3 times a week (more than an 80% reduction) for a city the size of Philadelphia and <i>only</i> save 900k?
In Boston they started putting advertisements on the sides of the machines...any other cities seen this? I wonder how much additional revenue it drives.
This article a few years ago seemed to think differently <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2010-07-13/news/24968528_1_compactors-collections-solar-powered" rel="nofollow">http://articles.philly.com/2010-07-13/news/24968528_1_compac...</a><p>Also, they're kind of a pain since you need two hands to throw something away without sticking your hand in something gross.<p>EDIT: I originally said opposite instead of differently.
I remember when the Phillies got into world series the police had to go all over the city grabbing these things, so they could switch them out for the oldschool wire-frame cans, so that night when the riots hit there wouldn't be as much dmg.<p>Do they add in these kinds of unexpected costs in their calculation?