Bigbelly Blog: Beyond the Bin

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.

Dubrovnik, Croatia is continuing to modernize waste collection with Bigbelly. The city's waste disposal company "Čistoća" has expanded their Bigbelly smart waste and recycling system to now include more public areas of Dubrovnik, such as the historic core of Baja, Ploče and Uvala Lapad. Bigbelly is helping help them to keep public spaces clean and neat, while achieving huge savings in operating costs.

Bigbelly deployments are soaking up the sun along the French Riviera's Mediterranean coastline. As you walk along the hilly, medieval old town situated along the beautiful beach and filled with picturesque gardens in the Ville de Menton, look out for Bigbelly's smart, solar-powered waste compacting system sprinkling the streetscape to collect pedestrian waste. 

The Municipality of Södertälje, Sweden produced a fun summer-themed video featuring their forward-looking waste coordinator, Tomas. This city located ~20 miles outside of Stockholm uses the Bigbelly system to reduce litter in their public spaces and to offer Wi-Fi hotspot service to their constituents enjoying the spaces.

As reported by ABC Channel 7:   Beachgoers in one Long Island town can expect to see less garbage and a lot more people on their cell phones. Until now, cell service on South Jamesport and Iron Pier beaches in Riverhead has been spotty at best. Now, new trash compactors made by Bigbelly will be installed. These solar-powered compactors will have a antenna to supply cell service for people nearby, and the garbage cans will notify sanitation when they need to be emptied.

Hartlepool has reduced the number of seagulls scavenging waste, as well as the number of bin collections conducted, following a four week trial of 15 Bigbelly smart stations.

Hartlepool, a seaside town in the northeast of England, has reduced the number of seagulls scavenging waste, as well as the number of bin collections conducted, following a four week trial of 15 Bigbelly smart stations. The Borough Council said is has redefined the term ‘seagull management’ with the deployment of the smart stations across its popular Seaton Carew seafront area – a decision that during the trial period reduced unnecessary bin emptying by 87%.

"Montclair loves its Bigbelly smart disposal units so much that the town installed 30 more units this week. The purchase of the 150-gallon solar-powered trash compactors follows the success of the initial rollout of 40 units in Montclair Center last February." - Baristanet.com article.

49 smart waste and recycling locations will replace traditional bins to create more recycling availability in public spaces and increase collection efficiencies 

ORINDA, CALIFORNIA / June 8, 2018 — The City of Orinda today announced the new Bigbelly smart waste and recycling system to replace traditional bins on downtown sidewalks and in parks. Installation was completed this week for the 98 units across 49 station locations in this new environmentally-friendly and innovative program. Every smart station has two sides (one for trash and one for recycling) for accessible and uniform public recycling.

As reported in the Irish Times: Dublin city centre is to get 800 solar-powered “compactor” bins, which could reduce the number of on-street rubbish bins by 20 per cent, according to Dublin City Council. Irish firm Kyron Street was awarded the contract to provide the smart bins, which have real-time information to tell waste collectors when the bin is full, and cut down on unnecessary collection runs. 

As reported in the Riverhead News-Review, a beachfront New York community is exploring what's possible with Bigbelly's multi-purpose platform: Smart Waste and Small Cell. Read on for more:

Riverhead Town will be trying out new smart trash compactors meant to reduce trash woes and also offer Wi-Fi and cell phone connection for beachgoers at South Jamesport Beach and Iron Pier Beach. The solar-powered receptacles will be installed [...] through a partnership between Bigbelly, a company that manufactures smart waste and recycling bins designed for cities, and Verizon. A cell antenna is attached to each compactor.