tagged w/ zero waste
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It appears that Toronto's sticky summer garbage strike is shortly coming to an end. For five weeks, residents of Canada's largest city have done without waste collection services with their daily refuse piling up in their front lawns and stoops. Across Canada, citizens have renewed gratitude at the miracle of weekly pick up. But what other lessons can cities learn from the Toronto strike of 2009?
Living Green, Living Well collects ideas on how to reduce your waste from across the country.It appears that Toronto's sticky summer garbage strike is shortly coming to an... more
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San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is interviewed by Current Green's Leah Lamb about the new recycling and composting laws. The question was chosen by Huffington Post Green, and submitted by asherp. Newsom spoke to land fill diversion, zero waste, water bottle bans, plastic bag bans, landfill diversions, the garbage police, community gardens, composting, and the influence of Bill Bill McDonough and the cradle to cradle theory.San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is interviewed by Current Green's Leah Lamb... more
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leahl
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added this
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2 years ago
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After reading a recent article on trash cans that send a text message when full, the realization hit me: I've seen those! That's what they are! They are known as Big Bellies, and they really do live up to their name.
Powered solely by the sun, Big Bellies use a mere 5 watt hours per day -- the equivalent amount of energy required to make your morning slice of toast -- to compact up to 150 gallons of trash.
Wait - it gets better. Instead of requiring monitoring and servicing, the Big Belly sends out an SMS message once it’s reached its capacity to alert the company responsible for it that it needs to be serviced. Although priced upwards of $3500 a pop, “a two year simple payback or less is often typical,” notes Tracy Carroll, Solutions Specialist with Big Belly.
The City currently has three Big Bellies in place -- all of which are within the downtown area -- that have been hard at work since November 2007. Others exist around town, with pilot programs being tested by KC Metro and Seattle Parks Association. Everett, Tacoma, Mukilteo, Redmond and Portland are a few of our neighbors who are also utilizing this system for waste management.
The goal of these green, clean, texting machines?
“To improve the environment and economies of the world by utilizing efficient approaches to every day problems," according to Big Belly Solar's website.
“Big Belly puts together the powerful combo of renewable energy and communication technology to get rid of fossil fuel trips... in the end, compaction and notification are much more sustainable than monitoring and collection,” Carroll explained. "This technology allows us "to use little 'green, clean tech' machines so we do not have to operate the big, time intensive, polluting machines as much. Smarter, cleaner, and green - less cost, less impact."
Through the use of smart technology like the Big Belly, we can move closer to achieving a more efficient waste management system -- perhaps one that can further pave the way toward our zero waste goals for a brighter future. And that’s exactly why these compacting systems are worldchanging.After reading a recent article on trash cans that send a text message when full, the... more
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