Apr
14
Big Belly trash cans
Filed Under Green Initiatives
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The allegation: The City of Chicago purchased an expensive, high-tech solar-powered compacting trash can, and then stuck it underground at the State and Lake el station.
The reality: The Big Belly trash can company gave 50 solar-powered compacting trash cans to the city as a test run, to show the city how much money it can save with them.
How they work: Big Belly trash cans are roughly the same size as a normal city trash can. Only the solar panels provide the energy to compact the trash down so that trash cans that normally have be emptied four times a day only have to emptied once. This saves on labor costs of city workers who collect the trash, vehicle emissions to transport the trash to the dump, and so forth. The city chose to put one such Big Belly at the State & Lake location because this is one of the highest traffic areas in the city. The compacting process is powered by an AC adaptor. So, while the city isn’t exactly taking advantage of its greenest potential, it is still saving them a bundle. The only thing is not having a sign to explain what’s going on to passers-by who see the solar-powered Big Belly and think Oh yeah. That’s just like the CTA. Spend a bundle of solar-powered trash cans and “stick ‘em where the sun don’t shine” (John Fritchey’s blog, http://johnfritchey.blogspot.com/2008/03/where-sun-dont-shine.html.)
Perhaps a more important debate: Is compacted trash a good thing? Taken from Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends web site, http://www.primidi.com/2007/07/18.html:
“The real trouble is that [BigBelly is] generating compacted trash. And that brings it’s own set of problems… Compacted trash is great if you’re looking to fit the maximum amount of waste into collection trucks, or landfills. But the flipside of that benefit is that now your landfills get no oxygen, since they’re so perfectly compacted. And without oxygen, you don’t get decomposition. You get preservation. So landfills end up being giant storage heaps for trash. Which, again, is fine, if you want to keep the stuff. But wasn’t getting rid of it the point of making it trash in the first place?” (Taken from TreeHugger in 2005.)
For a closer look at Big Belly trash cans, go to http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1127
Notes to me: Go to State & Lake, watch if anyone notices & comments. Make a few calls to the city—have many people complained?
I appreciate your trying to clarify the reality but I want to further clarify here. The company, BigBelly Solar, provided the one BigBelly at State and Lake at no cost to the CTA as part of a pilot program to test the effectiveness of the BigBelly. There are a total of 50 BigBelly units in the greater Chicago area but the others were purchased by various organizations, including Parks and Recreation and Streets and Sanitation. Another clarification relates to the decomposition of trash for landfills. The BigBelly does not compact the trash into a tight cube and the trash from the BigBelly decomposes in a landfill the same as regular non-compacted trash put into a trash truck. The BigBelly eliminates a lot of the space between the trash but not all the air.
Thank you so much for clearing that up.