Bigbelly Blog: Beyond the Bin

Smart trash and recycle bins installed on campus

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Lehigh University is well known for its leadership in engineering, now the school is taking its signature style of innovative thinking and applying it to waste disposal. As students at Lehigh University make their way back to the classrooms this semester, they'll notice some new trash cans around campus.

Bigbelly is the world leading smart waste and recycling solution for communities, campuses, and retailers. Our smart bins notify collection crews when they are ready for pick-up, and measure then report on recycling diversion. Bigbelly’s smart, sustainable solution provides a uniform recycling program and offers distinctive, standardized recycling education at the point of disposal… a win-win!

We're excited to announce our partnership with Recycling Across America - the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization on a mission to implement a standardized label solution to make it easy for society to recycling right. Let's recycle right! Our partnership delivers RAA's standardized labels custom-sized for Bigbelly's smart waste & recycling stations.

Worcester’s growing population of greedy gulls is being brought into line following Worcester City Council’s decision to trial 10 Bigbelly smart waste units’ ability to prevent seagull scavenging and increase litter capacity in city centre locations throughout the town.

Bigbelly’s Information & Communication Technology group is excited to take part in the upcoming Northeast DAS & Small Cell Association's NYC Summit on September 6, 2018.

"The reality is, downtown trash has been a big problem for a long time and this showed beneficial results almost immediately."

MILLBRAE, CA — In 2013, the City of Millbrae, in conjunction with South San Francisco Scavenger Company, launched a pilot program to see how effective Big Belly solar compacting trash cans would be in reducing trash overflows and staffing costs for high use trash cans throughout Millbrae's downtown. The results were overwhelmingly positive as the Bigbelly's held 10 times as much trash and significantly reduced the amount of staff time needed to empty and maintain them.

Solar Compacting Bins Fit More Waste; Only Need Collecting When FulL

Overflowing bins, vermin risks and shrinking resources are what prompted Derbyshire Dales Council to replace 115 litterbins with only 42 Bigbelly units - a decision that has since reduced unnecessary bin empties by up to 95% within some parts of the local authority.

Just across from the Canadian border and close in proximity to the iconic Niagara Falls... the Buffalo, New York community is one of the latest to adopt smart waste and recycling management with Bigbelly. The "vibrant village" of Elmwood describes itself as an "urban hot spot is home to Buffalo’s coolest coffee drinking, art loving foodies and fashionable creatives [...that...] was named one of the country’s 10 best neighborhoods and boasts some of the city’s most popular boutiques, bars and restaurants."

Join Bigbelly and educational facilities leaders at APPA 2018 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C. from August 3-5, 2018. APPA's annual conference is the platform for discussion, information share, networking, and much more! Join us and educational colleagues for this distinctive international event to discover best practices used by the profession's most recognized and talented educational facilities leaders. Attendees convene to identify and discuss the most current and pressing challenges facing educational facilities, and determine the common path forward. We are excited to be moderating a panel discussion among higher education facilities leaders on the role that smart waste solutions play in transforming campus waste and recycling services.

When you think about garbage bins locations in public spaces, certain areas immediately come to mind... Places such as sidewalks, plazas and squares, parks and picnic areas, trails and transit stops. These are all true across the globe! Waste bins are a key city infrastructure that have the opportunity to significantly enhance an environment and streetscape when a colorful, fun and smart solution is in place.  

The municipality of Alingsås, Sweden announced the installation of solar-powered and self-communicating smart bins. The units compress waste as it is thrown away, and notify when they are getting full. This way, the municipality will save on the number of collections and the barrels can be placed where they are most needed.