Solar Powered Trash Compacting Can
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With such a big crowd at the Head of the Hooch comes a big mess, but a new solar powered trash compactor helps keep the city clean.
Green Spaces of Chattanooga donated what's called "A Big Belly" trash compactor to the city.
It's the first in the state of Tennessee.
The compactor runs on a battery charged with solar power.
It compresses the trash when it gets to a certain level.
Distributor Jeff Recker says, "The true benefit of the big belly is it needs emptying less often than your standard can. If you look at a can like that over there that's 50-gallon can. Well, you could fit about 4 full cans of that size in the big belly due to it's ability to compact trash."
Each unit costs several thousand dollars, depending on how many a client buys, but Recker says you have to put the cost into perspective.
He says the machines save tax money by reducing pick up labor and fuel costs.
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Wow - economics and environment at the same time!
A calculation shows that collection costs are many thousands of dollars over a trash can's life. It costs about $2 per pickup. Doing that every day is $365 a year. A lot of sites in a city get collecitons twice or even three times a day. Over 5 years, that can be $10,000 or more!!
The BigBelly actually pays for itself and saves taxpayers thousands. We can have fiscal and environmental progress at the same time.