It was an innovation that required out-of-box thinking. Or, more accurately, out-of-the-can thinking.
By now, in any city you visit, you’re used to seeing a group of waste receptacles all bunched together. There’s the black-bag garbage basket for the stuff that goes to landfill, and the one for your bottles and cans. Sometimes, there’s something for organic waste.
And, you also get used to the fact that there’s a lot of garbage strewn around these receptacles. It’s not that a bunch of people got close to the receptacles and thought, “to hell with it, I’m not taking five more steps” and decided instead to toss their waste to the ground. No, these mini-landfills are caused by cans that overflow, or because people rifling through the garbage and recycling looking for bottles and cans aren’t going to put back all the trash they’ve displaced.
The City of Portland came up with a simple solution to at least part of the problem. Why not just accept the fact that people were ransacking the waste bins for bottles and cans, and simply make them easier to access? Portland’s new garbage cans have side trays for people to leave behind — and pick up — bottles and cans. There is no longer a need to burrow into the garbage.
Through the International Downtown Business Association, Dinu Alex, the Edmonton Downtown Business Association’s director of operations, heard about the Portland model. He thought it could work in Edmonton — but, like any good innovator, he made some tweaks.
“I said, when we do it, let’s not just do bottles and cans, let’s do another container where it’s accessible and open.”
And so the “smart” garbage can pilot project was launched.
“We opened up the recycle bin, so anyone who wanted access to it, they could use it,” says Alex. “By keeping it separate, we don’t see people getting into the trash-can component. They go into the recycling, take what they want and go.”
In 10 selected downtown locations, you’ll see the conjoined garbage-recycling receptacles. But, each of them have doors that allow anyone to access what’s inside. The blue recycle bin includes the message “help yourself” to the bottles and cans.
But there was another part to the problem that the Portland model didn’t address — and that’s overflowing garbage. So, working with Telus, sensors were added to the cans as part of the test project.
“We were struggling with what collection schedules were,” he says.
Using the sensors, the City can use the collected data to better coordinate garbage-collection schedules, which helps the trucks maximize their service hours. It reduces wasted time and fuel when it comes to collecting waste. And, from a downtown beautification perspective, it tackles the issue of garbage cans that are left too long without being emptied.
