Wednesday 27 August 2008

BigBelly


Canada is usually a few years behind the trends compared to Europe, Asia, California, the rest of the U.S., Lower Slobovia,.......  Anyway, this is very innovative for Vancouver. 

For those who don't know what BigBelly is, it's a garbage compactor. And it's solar powered. This means it should work pretty well, in the daytime, 30 or 40 days a year. 

That's an exaggeration, we just can't help going on and on and on about the rain. BigBelly is a very green machine. Because it compacts the garbage, fewer truck trips are required to empty it. Nothing spills out onto the street. Our present street containers are routinely vandalized, this one looks bomb proof. They're in a couple of spots around town on a long term trial to see how they stand up. 

My only concern regarding this thing is that if folks put redeemable containers in it the people who scavenge for them (not me personally, things aren't quite to that stage yet) will be out of luck. I'd prefer to see people place redeemables neatly beside the bin rather than throw them away. They wouldn't stay beside the bin for long. 

10 comments :

Laurie Allee said...

I agree about the redeemables. Plus, if they get compacted they won't ever get recycled anyway. Maybe Vancouver could just put a redeemables basket next to this. I guess people would put trash in it. Oh well.

Wayne said...

Laurie, give yourself a gold star. I read a newspaper article while researching this. The coordinator of the project suggested 'they would have to put a basket beside the bins'.
If you should decide to pursue a career in city planning your success is assured. Thanks for the comment. W.

Janet Kincaid said...

Sounds like a resourceful contraption, although I wonder what they'll smell like after a day or two of compacting and sitting. I agree it would be good to have adjacent recycling bins. Shame there aren't already.

Jerez Sherry said...

Probably be more successful than Seattle's toilets, now on sale at Ebay.

Jill said...

I was just noticing in a couple buildings a separate container beside the trash can for plastic bottles, and another for pop cans. Build it and people will use it.

Gerald (Ackworth born) said...

I can't see your photos - may be a server problem today only as others haven't noticed - they appear to be hosted at somewhere called vanphotoman
probably a temporary glitch

Unknown said...

I've never heard of Big Belly before; it seems a good idea except for the recycling thing...
Here we just have the common containers for organic waste and others in different colours for recycling materials: green-glass, yellow-metal and plastic, blue-paper and red-batteries.

Wayne said...

Gerald, I hope it's just a glitch. I tested two links just now and they seemed ok. Vanphotoman is my Picasa album. If I'd known at the time that I'd be stuck with the name I'd have given it a bit more thought. Thanks for telling me about the problem.

Lori said...

What a great idea. I wish we had them here. (I just heard about the earthquake on Vancouver Island. I hope it doesn't affect you!)

Wayne said...

Earthquake!, What earthquake? I'm finding out about earthquakes on Vancouver Island from Lori in NYC. Sheesh!
I watched the news this morning and all they really seemed to care about was the DNC. And this is Canada.
We live with this threat of 'THE BIG ONE' constantly. And it's definitely going to happen, sometime in the next 200 years.
We sit on the edge of our seats on the edge of the world with lots of bottled water and granola bars in the closet. Except me, I don't have any of that stuff.