Every few years, a local council rediscovers a mind numbing ‘new idea’ that will revolutionise waste management. Right now, it’s - smart bins (again); metal boxes that tell you when they’re full.
Brentwood Borough Council is the latest to flirt with the fantasy; talking about kitting out their high street and an A12 lay-by with ‘intelligent’ bins fitted with sensors, Wi-Fi and a monthly software subscription - all for the modest price of up to £4,495 each - or a trial bargain at £95 a month.The promise is that they’ll send an alert when they’re nearly full. The reality however is that they’ll send a lot of alerts when the signal gets weak, the battery dies, the lid jams shut/open, the app crashes or someone kicks the crap out of them.
This is Britain, not Silicon Valley. Our bins endure rain, grit, foxes, kebab boxes and the occasional seagull with attitude. Electronics don’t tend to thrive in that environment.
Councils like Brentwood already have collection crews driving regular routes, litter-picking and emptying along the way. Those crews have something no sensor has ever achieved - eyeballs. They can see when a bin’s full and when it’s been used as a makeshift ashtray, or worse.
The “smart” idea isn’t new. Dozens of councils have tried them. Some liked the data; most found the maintenance costs and false alerts outweighed the benefits. Several quietly went back to good old fashioned steel bins and common sense.
As one councillor said, this smells like a huge gimmick and he’s right. If this pilot happens at all, it’ll be because the supplier’s offering a free trial and someone fancies looking futuristic for the minutes. The only genuinely smart part would be to stick a QR code on every bin, let residents scan and report an overflow and save the taxpayers a few thousand quid.
Until the day a bin can dodge traffic, sweep up its own litter and pay its own Wi-Fi bill, I’d recommend we stick to the dumb and reliable. link - more like this (bins) - link - more like this (councils) - link
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