Solar-Powered Trash Cans Saved Philadelphia Almost a Million Bucks Last Year | Hacker News Reader

Solar-Powered Trash Cans Saved Philadelphia Almost a Million Bucks Last Year

motherboard.vice.com

162 pointsweston67 comments

> Before BigBelly, trash collectors had to clear out each can three times a day. Now they do so three times a week.

Living in center city Philadelphia, I can confidently say there are a couple unintended reasons these things may require less emptying: First, they're often so dirty that no one would want to grab the handle and open the door to throw trash in (I avoid them at all costs myself). Who wants to touch a trashcan even when it's clean? Second, if you're willing to grab the trash-encrusted handle and open the door, they're frequently jammed (or locked?) shut. On the few occasions where I was forced to use them because there were no other trashcans in sight, they were difficult or impossible to open.

So what do people do? They throw their trash on the ground, or they find a nearby trashcan that doesn't require contact to use. It's not unusual to see bags of trash sitting by these things with random garbage scattered around or on top of them.

I'm in complete agreement. These trash cans are a complete nuisance in the neighborhoods where they have been deployed. This is especially true in the high-traffic neighborhoods.

I lived at 3rd and South for a while both before and after these were deployed. The old cans were emptied once or twice a day by sanitation workers. Very often, those sanitation workers would also pick up trash off the street around the cans. When the Big Belly's were installed, they started coming around every other day or so instead. No one touches these things. People simply throw their trash at them and walk away. I once saw a Big Belly covered by a pile of trash near 5th and South.

I got really good at opening them with the heal of my shoe, or using a napkin. Very often, though, they were either jammed shut or stuffed full.

The city probably could have just stopped collecting trash altogether to achieve the same result and save even more money.

Fellow Philadelphian here. I agree entirely, these are terribly designed and I hardly ever see anyone use these. The fact that much of Philadelphia is covered with trash is a testament to the fact that these have done very little to alleviate the issue.

The primary issue with these is that they have a user interface that increases the friction and time of throwing things away. Having to walk up and grab the handle (which is usually disgusting), throw in your garbage, and then close it, adds a small, though significant enough amount of time that most people can't be bothered to do it (many Philadelphians just throw garbage on the street). Additionally, it is difficult to throw away larger amounts of trash or loads that would require two hands to dispose of.

Agreed. I often wonder how much money in processing it costs them after people just throw their trash in 'hole' meant for bottles at the precariously available attached recycling bins.

I feel your pain, though, about just trying to find a bin - I'll walk blocks without finding one in some parts of the city.

What a bummer. I'm totally disillusioned now.

This has certainly removed any lingering desire I might have had to visit Philadelphia.

Any philadelphians or visitors to philadelphia want to chime in? I want to visit it due to history and architecture.

Is the city center doing well, or decaying? I know some cities have vibrant cores but decaying inner peripheries. (i.e. between downtown and newer suburbs)

What killed my inclination to visit Philly was the Bill Burr rant (Google Bill Burr philadelphia incident). It may not be the same now, and that was a few years back, but just the thought that such a big crowd can be such jerks -- and I know the relative sample size is small and skewed (drunk) -- just destroyed my urge.

The big reason I wanted to visit was the history, and also (this might seem silly) because Bill Cosby is from there.

For the record that didn't happen in Philadelphia it happened in Camden NJ which is across the river. Clearly a lot of people in attendance were from Philly but they were also from NJ and other surrounding areas. Also it happened at an Opie and Anthony event, so you can imagine what sort of crowd was there.

It's also notable that they stopped doing those events at all because booing of new comedians was a general problem everywhere.

Philly does have a lot of problems, but it annoys me that we have a reputation as particularly bad crowds at sporting events etc based on a few notable incidents. If you look at basically any other city where large crowds of drunk obnoxious people congregate they have similar incidents.

If ever there was a city that deserved the Escape From New York "wall it off and write it off" treatment, it is Camden. Thankfully the Delaware River really does an effective job at keeping that rot at bay.

Philly really isn't that bad... though I suspect many HNers who are used to the shinier west coast cities would experience a bit of culture shock.

I wouldn't say Philly is going anywhere quickly at the moment, whether good or not. However it has excellent food, decent drinking and nightlife, and it's pretty close to both DC and NYC.

You should, it's a great place to visit. It has issues (crime, crappy transportation, etc) but as a visitor you should be able to mostly avoid those.

Philadelphia has a lot to offer, I'm from the suburbs of Philadelphia and I find myself going to the city almost every weekend. Lot's of great bars (especially on South Street), the Philadelphia museum of art, and all of the historical landmarks make it a great place to visit. Philadelphia also has a huge resurgence in biking, if you go to Philadelphia on a nice afternoon you'd be able to spot hundreds of bikers. It really isn't as bad as people make it out to be, just don't stray into the more crime riddled neighborhoods (North Philly, West Philly, Camden, etc.)

Don't let the goofy public trash cans discourage you--there are lots of good reasons to visit Philadelphia. In no particular order, Philadelphia has great bars and restaurants, especially great beer options, the Art Museum, the Rodin, the Barnes, the Kimmel Center, a vibrant Chinatown, the Italian Market (which morphs into a bit of Southeast Asian Market), and many quaint and historical places to walk.

I'm glad to hear that. I have to say I've been put off by Philadelphia sports fans more than anything else, but you've presented a more diverse and interesting picture of the city.

Perhaps they've gotten their cost issues under control now, but this 2010 report from the Philly comptroller points out a whole bunch of problems: http://www.philadelphiacontroller.org/publications/other%20r...

The report shows all sorts of maintenance issues that weren't accounted for. It takes longer to empty the bags on these units, for example.

I helped write a proposal to buy some of these units (albeit for a university campus, not streetside in cities), and we didn't find any significant cost savings. The appeal is the PR/image boost of having solar panels on every trash can. It looks like you're doing something sustainable, even if the numbers don't add up.

It isn't even that noble. The reasons that cities bought them is that the Federal stimulus paid for them.

The machines jam in the winter, the batteries have a shelf life, and they become filty and disgusting in the summer heat. The company is a good at lobbying though.

No-bid contract - I remember when this was a big deal on the news for a while. Reminds me of the alcohol vending machine debacle (thankfully it seem that we are closer to privatizing our liquor stores in recent weeks).

These things were so bad Wegman's thought that they were hurting their business. http://articles.philly.com/2011-06-13/news/29653045_1_wine-k...

That report is pretty damning.

They're also horrible trash cans.

Has anyone run the numbers on the $900K?

I'm thinking, a million people actually live in the "served area" and maybe one public trash can per thousand people, so figure a thousand cans.

900K divided by 365 is about three K per day.

Combine a thousand cans and emptied three times per day and 3K per day budget and you end up with emptying a can costs a buck.

Lets say each garbage man works 8 hours and never slacks off and only takes 5 minutes average to drive from can to can and empty. Anyway I'm thinking a thousand cans times three times a day means 3000 drivebys times 5 minutes each means 15000 minutes expended per day with the old system driving to visit each can. Now realize that you're not going to save any drive time using the solar cans. But for the sake of amusement we'll try it. Now 15 kilominutes given an 8 hour working day results in thirty or so trash trucks and garbage men under the old (and new...) system.

Not sure if that's reasonable or not. A couple workmans comp cases and the next million empties are going to cost an extra buck, sure. On the other hand, its hard to imagine burning a dollar of diesel between each can. Philly just isn't that big. Then again, if each garbage man was paid $30K per year aka $15/hr and emptied about ten cans per hour, thats $1.50 per empty so factor in lower pay.. But how do you actually save money if you have to drive the same old route anyway?

Interestingly the economics of big city garbage pickup begin to make it look reasonable to simply have the post office mail trash to the landfill. Its not many orders of magnitude apart, and fundamentally junkmail delivery isn't all that far away from garbage pickup. So it should cost about a "postage" amount.

And there's no mention of the cost of the trash cans themselves. I've found that governments are fond of flouting operating cost savings while incurring massive capital costs.

For instance, my local transit agency purchased several hybrid-electric buses that cost $200,000 more each than a regular bus, but only improve fuel usage by 0.6 miles per gallon, saving at most a few thousand dollars per year. The agency of course pulled a full court press on how much fuel was being saved but wouldn't discuss the additional cost of the bus itself that made the purchase a complete waste of money.

Which agency?

The Feds are mostly responsible for the love of hybrids that US agencies have. The extra fed funding that agencies get for hybrid buses make it worth it for them, and the fuel savings is the cherry on top.

He says the cost at the end of the video: $3800 with a 3-year ROI.

Hopefully it will be possible to fix the UI issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LaNiJR2F6c

At the 24 minute mark he talks about a program to collect trash from inaccessible places. They gave people food to bring collected trash to a central spot.

I can definitely see the value in savings. You have to wonder about the costs of maintenance and vandalism though.

In a city like SF, the people here quickly break these. The biggest problem would be the homeless breaking into the machines for cans and such. Hooligans would spray paint the tops because they think its cool to burn the world and be "individual".

Our cans are industrial strength green concrete batteries with heavy wire tops that allow for easy access.

Philly is a much rougher city than SF. If it works in Philly, it should work in SF.

We have them in Boston and I've never seen one vandalized or defaced. Boston is pretty crime free though.

Although I have never lived in San Francisco, I am a Philadelphian and think I can say with confidence that Philly is just as rough or (likely, I think) more challenging of an urban environment to deploy something like this. Philly can be a pretty rough city.

In Philly I would consider these sorts of trashcans self-vandalizing. Hooligans don't bother because they get trashed by normal use anyway; much better to spend precious hooligan time vandalizing nicer things, such as regular trashcans.

The biggest problem would be the homeless breaking into the machines for cans and such.

Followed quickly by better-equipped thieves taking the solar panel, the batteries, or the whole apparatus. If this seems unlikely, google: "metering lights" "wire theft" "bay area"

Neat idea, neat solution, but the problem with articles like this is that it leaves out the other half of the equation - what was the marginal capital cost? Ie, if they cost $100M (for hyperbole's sake, which clearly they did not), saving $900K a year is a pretty awful return on capital.

The city spent $2.2M for the compactors, including installation and a service warranty. The estimated cost savings from the spend was $13M over 10 years; if they saved $900,000 in the first year that looks like a reasonable estimate.

Thanks Dan - didn't see that in the article, but if that's really the return on capital, its a significant one. I'd poke a little bit more as to what the real opportunity cost was here (ie, did you absolutely need to spend the $2.2M to get the fuel savings, or could a more efficient system of checking them with cheap transmitting devices work), but that's context that should have been in the main article.

Assuming they last the predicted 10 years. Someone else linked http://www.philadelphiacontroller.org/publications/other%20r... which says:

"Issue: Contract compactor specifications on expected life of product vague and not supported by data.

"The contract included compactor specifications that included an expected life of 10 years. When questioned about data or research to support this expected life, the BigBelly Solar CEO stated the life expectancy was an estimate based on the type of products and materials used in the compactors. He further stated that the compactor had a life expectancy that was estimated similar to an automobile; in that some repairs and parts may need to be made during the normal life cycle, but full replacement may not need to be made for theyears. When asked if there was any testing data to support the 10 year life expectancy, he indicated that he was not aware of any specific data."

Our city has these. The price I recall they paid was $4K per unit. I think they are using some really twisted math on these claims. A simple wire trash basket can easily be inspected by sight and emptied when full... it's not like the garbage trucks are dispatched to individual trash cans. They have standard routes at standard times, the only question is whether they need to stop and check each can.

Reading comprehension test: the article claims that the units communicate with a central trash pickup authority--units are only emptied when full. As a result, the trash authority can avoid fuel-wasting trips and optimize schedules on the fly to empty units when they need emptying. Supposedly, this optimization has, or will, yield roughly $1 million in annual savings.

See that's the part I don't understand. I did a separate numerical analysis that the largest cost of garbage pickup is paying people for windshield time not fuel cost. If you skip stopping at every can along the way, you cover the same distance slightly cheaper, but $900K implies an absolutely huge savings which doesn't add up because its nearly their entire departmental labor budget, not, I can drive from the dump to 3rd street in only 7 minutes now instead of 10 minutes because I'm not stopping at every can.

I would have to check my numbers. It might be that garbage men total cost of salary and benefits is a (large) multiple of $30K/yr (getting into software engineer pay territory) in which case windshield time is even more incredibly expensive. Then it might work out that reducing labor cost by 10% or so would actually work out to 900K/yr.

Presumably since the cans get emptied so much less often they can get big savings by skipping 3rd street entirely because none of the cans is reporting full.

Maybe, but they still have to drive past the 3rd street cans on the way from the full cans on 2nd street to the full cans on 4th street. I'm thinking windshield time is much larger than emptying time. Basically garbage truck drivers probably spend a lot more time driving than hoisting trash cans.

Its like the mailman argument. If I don't get any mail today, my mailman can't magically teleport past my house. True he does save the time of opening a box and tossing some sorted mail in, but that action only takes a tiny fraction of the time of walking 100 feet past my property. A registered mail transaction takes a LONG time like 5 minutes and if more people got registered mail (or fewer got junk mail) then the ratio would flip and he'd save huge time.

>Its like the mailman argument. If I don't get any mail today, my mailman can't magically teleport past my house.

No, but he can save a lot of time by not turning down your street at all.

It would seem to me that a better solution would be a simple, traditional open-top can, and a solar powered, high-mounted (ie, out of reach) remote camera with sensing technology would get most of the savings with a much lower up-front and continuing capital cost.

The main savings seems to be from being able to monitor when the cans are full, and only pickup when needed.

To me, it would be simple to write an app that read in a x daily image upload of the can which automatically calculated the level of fullness. It wouldn't require specialised can hardware and could drive most of the benefit (only emptying when required). You could double the size if more capacity was required.

Also, I would expect that these would fall into a very predictable pattern, with some cans requiring emptying 5 times a week, some 8 times a week, some twice a week. It seems some simple modelling would also give you many benefits for a very small upfront-cost.

I have visited many friends places that had compactors installed when their kitchens were new, and over time they just stop bothering with the compaction and use it as a regular disposal. Usually because the compaction is messy, faulty or just too much bother to use. I would expect public trash cans to have the same problems, but magnified.

The whole thing looks like a solution searching for a problem - bludgeoning a simple problem with too much technology.

How about taking the $100 cans, installing sensors in them that phone home when it is full? Power them with 9 volt batteries and replace them on a regular schedule. You get most of the benefits at a much lower cost.

> It's not a rich city, like New York or San Francisco, with cash to dump into sprawling bike lanes ... It's great that New York can install ... high-end bike-sharing programs. But ...

Bike lanes can bestow great economic benefits, from reduced healthcare costs to reduced pollution, fewer fatalities on the roads, less congestion, less stunting of children's intellectual development, etc. It's a shame people are ignorant of these benefits and choose to disparage bike infrastructure as an example of profligate and unnecessary spending (I recently read another article doing the same for London's cycling infrastructure plans over the next decade).

LSE Study: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/21/cycling-3...

The Lancet: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jan/26/pollution....

USC Study: http://econweb.umd.edu/~ham/test%20scores%20submit.pdf [PDF]

Economic Benefits: http://cyclingresourcecentre.org.au/page/cycling_benefits_ec...

More bike lanes, fewer gimmicky solar-powered trash cans, please.

> Before BigBelly, trash collectors had to clear out each can three times a day. Now they do so three times a week.

Sounds like a simpler solution would be to - use larger trash cans!

trash collectors had to clear out each can three times a day. Now they do so three times a week.

Or you know they could have been smart about it, if the can wasn't full several collections in a row cut the pick up rate for that particular can. It starts being full/overloaded up the collection rate. Unless they are trying to say that this trash compactor is so good that it delivers 60x(3 times a day * 7 days a week * 3 weeks) space efficiency which doesn't seem likely. Maybe the new cans are larger?

That would be 7x space efficiency. It was 3 times a week - not every 3 weeks.

Thanks miss read that bit. 7x sounds more doable by a compactor.

I remember when these went in in Philly a couple years ago... often on well-shaded corners, not such a great match for solar powered compaction I'd think.

No doubt the new bins reduce the amount of waste collected, a) because nobody wants to touch the grotty handles, and b) it isn't possible to fit anything much bigger than a loaf of bread. However, could they possibly reduce the amount of waste generated? Where is the rest of it going?

Center City also has a crew of workers to operate noisy, walk-behind, teal street sweepers. I'm not sure if these actually pick up garbage, but at any rate it would be a delight to see them pull a tour of duty on Snyder Ave. instead of Market.

Saving a city the size of philly a million dollars doesn't sound like very much to me. How was the million saved? Is that accounting for the time and energy spent installing and maintaining these?

Interesting article, although it doesn't break down where the savings come from. It appears that most of the savings come from the compaction and communication about the cans being full. Given that solar is still often of questionable cost-efficiency (especially, I would imagine, on sidewalks in Philadelphia), I would think that not much of it comes from the solar aspect (unless the cost of hooking up the cans to power or changing a battery is high). The article doesn't really make it clear.

The article makes it pretty clear.

Third paragraph:

"...communications systems for real-time reporting on a bin’s capacity. By allowing municipalities to service the BigBellys only when they are full, they are saving hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel annually across all BigBelly units."

Fourth paragraph:

"...information gained from each compactor allows waste managers to optimize collection schedules and routes. Before BigBelly, trash collectors had to clear out each can three times a day. Now they do so three times a week."

The hourly cost of labor for a couple of unionized employees (the minimum would probably be a driver and a loader) is probably greater than the hourly cost of the fuel that's used, especially if they're running overtime. Factoring in employee costs like health insurance, pensions and vacation time, I'd guess at least $100 per hour for a two-man crew. You can get many gallons of diesel for that amount, especially if you purchase in bulk for a fleet of city vehicles.

Also, the number of garbage trucks that the city would need to own would go down, as would the number of employees needed to maintain them.

I think the article emphasized the fuel savings because they didn't want to explicitly call attention to the fairly obvious conclusion that this efficiency improvement, if successful, would cause lots of city employees to lose their jobs.

they said they didn't get rid of personnel just now use them for the recycling program

I would speculate that the solar power isn't the big cost savings here, in terms of operating costs. However, in terms of installation costs, it is probably a win - getting power to these would add a significant up-front cost, because a large chunk of sidewalk would need to be torn up to get power to the device.

In this situation, why would solar power alone account for ANY cost savings? They just replaced traditional garbage cans (that require no electricity/power at all) with compactors that run on solar power and send out an electronic message when they are full.

It's not like the previous garbage cans ran off of electricity from the local power grid, or required gasoline or something to run, and now the new solar-powered units yield a cost savings because they are off-grid. They were just regular old trash cans that sat there and did nothing but hold trash, no electricity required.

The savings were because of new capabilities, not new efficiencies. Adding power (which they happened to use solar power) gave them new capabilities (compaction, signalling), which saved them almost a million bucks.

Solar was still the enabling technology. Marginal energy cost comparison with grid electricity is irrelevant, since the cost structure is dominated by fixed costs. Can you imagine installing, reading, and maintaining an electric meter and utility interconnect for every single trash can?

Wow, OK simple math lesson for you:

I can reduce my per year cost by $X, but I need to spend $Y to install some technology to enable the savings.

If $Y < $X * N (where N is the number of years that tech will last), then you are saving money.

Now lets say the cost of putting in those trash cans is $Y1 with a wired connection. $Y1 includes tearing up the street to run power cables. That makes $Y1 not meet the inequality. No savings happen. But with solar powered trash cans, which cost $Y2 to install, and $Y2 meets the inequality, then the solar power is enabling the savings. That is the difference.

In another post you already mention that you understand why the savings occur - fewer trips because of logistical planning from communications, plus fewer trips because compaction allows more trash per bin. This makes me wonder if you are just being disingenuous with your second paragraph. Or maybe you just don't understand that less time and fuel means less money spent.

The fact that you and the GP are fixating on solar being off-grid to provide savings doesn't even make sense as the article doesn't claim that to be the case.

lol, thanks for the math lesson.

When I said "in this situation", I wasn't referring to your hypothetical situation where the alternative is to tear up sidewalk and run new power lines to the trash cans. I was talking about the article, which had nothing to do with that.

Maybe I misunderstood what the parent commenter was asking when they were asking about cost savings coming from solar power. Doesn't matter, moving on.

How do you reduce collections from 21 times a week to 3 times a week (more than an 80% reduction) for a city the size of Philadelphia and only save 900k?

They don't mention it, but I assume collections take a lot longer. My parents used to have a trash compactor in the kitchen, and let me tell you taking out a 90 lb. block of trash once every three weeks was way worse than tossing a 10 lb. bag every other day.

Sweet stink! How do trash compactors deal with rotting food accumulating for much longer times?

I have no personal experience with trash compactors, but it seems like compacted trash would have poor oxygen exchange that would inhibit decomposition.

In Boston they started putting advertisements on the sides of the machines...any other cities seen this? I wonder how much additional revenue it drives.

This article a few years ago seemed to think differently http://articles.philly.com/2010-07-13/news/24968528_1_compac...

Also, they're kind of a pain since you need two hands to throw something away without sticking your hand in something gross.

EDIT: I originally said opposite instead of differently.

I remember when the Phillies got into world series the police had to go all over the city grabbing these things, so they could switch them out for the oldschool wire-frame cans, so that night when the riots hit there wouldn't be as much dmg.

Do they add in these kinds of unexpected costs in their calculation?

That's probably because it's Always Sunny in Philadelphia :P

Loving all the vice links on HN these days.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com