The most high-tech trashcan you’ll never use

The city is attempting to tackle one major source of litter in New York: public trash bins that overflow and blow across city streets. The solution? A Big Belly?!

Last year, the Department of Sanitation tested a high-tech trashcan called the Big Belly. The Big Belly is a solar-powered, compacting trashcan that can hold from 4 to 10 times the amount of a normal public bin. The company that produces the compactor, Seahorse Power, says that, in addition to less overflow and less frequent emptying, Big Bellies mean less odor and fewer rats.

But at around $4000 each, rather than the $100 price tag on a typical city can, the Big Belly has not yet caught on. Another complaint was that people didn’t recognize the then olive-colored contraptions that looked more like mailboxes than trashcans.

This one never really got off the ground in New York, although there are a couple Big Bellies in use in Chicago and a few other big cities in the U.S. 

The city’s newest addition to the anti-litter brigade

The city’s newest addition to the litter patrol is a Street Condition Observation Unit, or SCOUT. (Not sure where the “T” comes in…)

SCOUT is made up of 15 staffers in three-wheeled scooters who will visit every city street each month, recording and reporting on litter, illegal dumping and overflowing litter baskets, along with fallen trees, damaged bus stops, potholes, etc. The SCOUT patrol cannot issue violations, but they are equipped with GPS devices to send the locations of trouble areas to the Department of Sanitation. The new unit has begun to make its rounds, and is supposed to be in full swing by the end of the year.

Adopt a trash can?

It’s become pretty clear during my litter observations that much of the trash that ends up on the streets is because the trash cans runneth over.

The Department of Sanitation has obviously noticed the same thing, because their website includes an option where New Yorkers can adopt a trash can to prevent such spillage. It’s all very sterile, with the trash cans are referred to as “litter baskets” and trash bags as “liners.”

An adoptees’ responsibilites are to “change the liners when the basket is three quarters full and place the full securely tied liners next to the basket for collection.” In exchange, the site says, “The Department supplies plastic bag liners, a collection schedule and a contact person at the Department’s local district operations office.”

I thought Angelina was a good Samaritan for her adoptions, but anyone who voluntarily handles public trash for the purely altruistic reason of keeping the streets clean surely deserves an award of some kind!

Give a hoot and stomp out the litter campaigns

Last year, the NYC Mayor’s Fund sponsored a now-defunct anti-litter campaign they called “Stomp the Litter.” It featured the cast of the Broadway show Stomp pushing brooms rhythmically throughout the city. Ironically, throughout the entire 60 seconds of watching them sweep around Central Park, Staten Island and the Bronx Zoo in the promotional video (still available for your viewing pleasure at www.nyc.gov/html/fund/html/projects/stompoutlitter.shtml), I never actually saw them pick up a single piece of trash. I also did not see any improvement in the cleanliness of New York streets in the months following the launch of this campaign.

And so the city has resorted to scare tactics.

Last week, I was riding the 7 train in from Queens (why I was there is a story for another blog entirely). There was an “MTA Subtalk” sign beside the door with “flame”-red writing that read, “ Litter gets on the tracks and catches fire, and that causes train delays…a little litter goes a long way.” Still, with the threat of fire AND train delays, the trash remains.

And so I am left wandering, do anti-litter campaigns actually inspire anyone to stop littering?

I remember one time, when I was 5 or 6 years old, and Woodsy the Owl had just visited my kindergarten class. I was outside the supermarket with my mom and I watched someone drop a piece of trash on the street. Shocked at what I had seen, I immediately stepped in front of the offender and dutifully quoted what I learned in school that day: “Give a hoot, don’t pollute!”

Luckily, since I was quite cute in my younger days, the “polluter” turned red only from embarrassment and quickly picked up their trash. (I have a feeling that, at 26, as I get set to confront some litterers on the streets of New York, I may get quite a different response.)

Woodsy worked. Of course, I was an impressionable kid.

Perhaps anti-litter campaigns should take place only at elementary schools. Dora, the Anti-litter Explorer? Soak up litter with Sponge Bob? Better suggestions…?