Darling!  There is a SMS from your bin ...

There is not enough space to store the bins.  How we can work smarter to solve the problem?

Melbourne’s street litter bins collect 4800 tonnes of waste every year. (Source: City of Melbourne website).  As the number of visitors and residents continue to increase, the council has introduced innovations to help keep our city streets clean and reduce litter in busy city locations.

One method is to use the BigBelly solar compactor bins. 14 of these solar compactor bins that have smart sensor technology have been installed in several CBD locations. These are:

Queensbridge Square on Southbank Promenade (three bins)

Northbank underpass outside Flinders Street Station (one bin)

Flinders St, Swanston St, Flinders Lane and Elizabeth St block (13 bins).

Each solar-powered bin compacts the rubbish, holding up to 600 litres, compared with a standard bin, which holds only 80 litres. An SMS alert is sent to the waste contractor when the bin is 50 per cent and 80 per cent full.

The aim is to empty the bin when it is around 80 per cent capacity to maximise the collection run efficiency. The bins will help reduce waste on our streets and minimise the number of garbage trucks on the road.

As another innovation, the City of Melbourne has partnered with local firm EYEfi to install smart sensors in 50 bins on Docklands promenades as part of a two-year trial. The smart sensors send a message to the waste contractor when the bin is nearly full and needs to be emptied.

They also record and store information on how often bins need to be emptied to help plan future bin collections.

The chair of the City of Melbourne’s environment portfolio, Cr Cathy Oke said: “We will install more than 360 smart litter bins in the CBD following a successful trial of 14 bins last year. The new bins hold seven times the waste of a standard litter bin and will help to reduce garbage truck movements in busy CBD areas. We administer 2496 public litter bins and 545 recycling bins across the municipality, with $9.8 million spent on waste services each year.”

The BigBelly Solar system is not just any old rubbish bin. It is the beginning of a smart, wireless and integrated system that can assist municipalities solve a pressing problem and save money at the same time.

Solar compactor benefits:

High capacity - 600 litres – Automatic compaction when full allows five times capacity of standard 120L wheelie bins;

Multi-stream options available to create customised combination stations (pairing Smartbelly with Bigbelly where necessary); and

The hopper design keeps waste contained while deterring pests and preventing waste overflow and wind-blown litter.