City of Pleasanton, CA Installs BigBelly Solar Collection System

By: Freddy Estrella & Briana Smith, WAXIE Sanitary Supply

On Monday, July 29, 2013 the City of Pleasanton, CA commenced an innovative recycling pilot program with the installation of several BigBelly Solar Collection Systems as part of their ongoing Recycling Initiative.

The pilot program consists of five BigBelly SmartBelly Double Stations which are stationed in highly visible places around the busy downtown area. The locations were chosen due to their high concentration of pedestrian traffic and areas occupied by larger crowds for events such as Friday Concerts or First Wednesdays. You can find them near the Firehouse Arts Center and Wayside Park, and in front of Tully’s on the Plaza. The first 1-2 week pilot locations will then help them decide where to put the other three units.

BigBelly Solar Intelligent Waste & Recycling Collection Systems are an innovative new way to process trash & recyclables. Most BigBelly systems consist of a solar trash compactor & a recycling unit (or two). As the name suggests, the solar trash compactor automatically compacts trash by engaging on-board software that monitors when trash is deposited. This allows the unit to hold much more than a traditional trash receptacle. What makes it even more effective is that a built-in wireless monitoring system can tell when the compactor is full and sends an electronic message for the trash collector to empty the compactor.



The BigBelly Solar Systems will benefit Pleasanton in several ways:

• The city will be able handle adding extra collection for recycling because the overall collections will go down drastically (due to increased waste capacity & remote monitoring of waste levels)
  
• They will help the city’s Parks & Recreation department maintain the city’s public spaces
  
• Heat mapping will prove where the city should focus their recycling efforts
• It’s important for Pleasanton’s public areas to parallel the recycling initiatives of the commercial & residential communities

The pilot program is funded by $20,000 in stopwaste.org Measure D bond money. Pleasanton will be monitoring the waste collection information closely and if the BigBelly Solar Collection Systems work out, the city will purchase more in addition to the original five. The benchmark for success is if they can prove that the BigBelly Systems help them towards achieving their 75%+ diversion rate.

You'll soon be able to watch the launch on TV30.org (http://www.tri-valleytv.org/streaming/SLICE-TriValley.html - BigBelly launch footage starts at the twelfth minute), a local Pleasanton public television, we'll keep you posted. And the results so far...the first unit placed in front of Tully’s still hadn’t filled up by the end of day five!

You can find more information on BigBelly Solar Intelligent Waste & Recycling Systems here or by calling your local WAXIE Sanitary Supply at (800) 995-4466.

The launch was also mentioned in the City of Pleasanton’s community newsletter The Pleasanton Today on page 2 of the July 5, 2013 edition.