Garbage Bins In South Peninsula Tell You When To Empty Them

The new garbage bins dropped off around Saint John have a few tricks up their sleeves.

In 2013, Uptown Saint John bought three big belly silver compact trash cans. Now, 10 more have been added to the collection.

Nancy Tissington, executive director of Uptown Saint John, said these garbage cans were treated as normal cans but they’re so much more.

“They work off a cell phone network, which is kind of cool, so they actually send messages directly to the end user to state how many times the door has been opened, which is interesting,” she said.

They have the capacity to use solar power to compact down trash in the bin every so often. Plus they can be monitored through a phone application in different ways.

“It actually will tell you what percentage of how full it is. So you can set it to say, listen we want to pick them up at 50 per cent or we want to pick them up at 70 per cent and you have that message. So the software that comes with this is quite remarkable,” she said.

Tissington said in 2015 people wanted more garbage cans, and while there are baskets, they often overflow.

So she went to the board of directors and suggested more of the solar powered bins. They managed the order and ordered five while the city ordered another five. Each bin costs $3,000 and they have a longer life cycle.

Tissington said they were delivered last fall, and she waited until after winter to place them. The city told them where garbage workers see most of overflowing and tips for where they are. Since they were placed last week, they have been met with lots of positive comments.

There’s also differences between the five bins the city bought and five bins Uptown Saint John paid for.

“Last spring I was in Kelowna, B.C., and they have the big belly waste receptacles, but they actually have them wrapped in historical pictures. I was inspired by that and came back and went, well of all the places to do historical photos would be Canada’s first city,” she said.

With the help of a summer student, Tissington went to the museum and purchased photos on the areas to place on the bins.

“I think it’s better than just a gray box, it has an element of art in the street,” she said.

The city monitors the bins and sets the percentage based on foot traffic, data-based decision making and knowledge from city workers. The operations supervisor also has the app.

The bins open like a mailbox, which will also reduce its limits to small hand litter as opposed to residents stuffing more garbage inside.

Tissington said there won’t be any more bins bought for now.

“I think that will be it for now this year, but we were very much behind the neighborhood plan in place, but decided to go with something a little more ease of use. it’s actually that you don’t have to empty them every day is good for tight resources, not as much staffing but more upfront cost,” she said.

Tissington said her next project is hopefully establishing four streams for bins to include garbage, bottles, plastic and paper before her retirement.

“That’s a dream of mine and I think we can get there because I’ve seen other cities do it.”