Showing continued commitment to more environmentally friendly and efficient waste collection practices, the Township installed 30 more smart disposal units last week.
The purchase of the 150-gallon solar-powered trash compactors follows the success of the initial rollout of 40 units in Montclair Center last February.
Several new receptacles have been strategically placed in areas of high foot traffic in each business district: Watchung Plaza, Upper Montclair, South End and Walnut Street.
The solar-powered units provide greater efficiency since they run motorized compactors which greatly reduce waste volumes. The units allow for up to five times the capacity of traditional trash bins. In addition, the receptacles have built-in cloud computing technology which sends out an alert when a bin needs to be emptied.
“The beauty of the Bigbelly smart waste and recycling system is that we can track and measure operations to optimize collection routines by location-based waste patterns,” said Craig Brandon, Montclair’s Supervisor of Solid Waste Services. “The technology has helped us minimize how often we collect waste from the bins which saves on human labor, use of our trucks and fuel. Plus, overflowing trash cans are no longer an issue with the smart bins.”