COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, July 13, 2020

QUESTION NO. 19

QUESTION: Councillor L. O'Toole

To ask the Chief Executive to provide an updated report on the findings from the pilot scheme for the solar bins, initiated sometime ago.

REPLY:

A trial on the use of 8 solar powered, smart litter bins was carried out in the Rathfarnham area from Novemeber 2019 to May 2020.  The following report on the trial was presented to the Environment, Public Realm and Climate Change SPC on May 27th.  It was agreed that a further report would be brought to the Environment SPC with regard to developing the pilot proposals.

Report.

In response to requests received from elected members the Council’s Public Realm Section agreed to carry out a trial on the use of solar powered, smart street litter bins.  The matter was referred to the Environment, Public Realm and Climate Change SPC for discussion where it was agreed that a limited number of these bins would be installed in the Rathfarnham area where a 6 month trial would be undertaken.

In early 2019 a tender process was carried out for the installation and maintenance for a 6 month period of 8 such bins.  Three tenders were received however one of these was late and could not be accepted, while a second was deemed not to be compliant with the requirements of the tender.  The contract for the supply of these bins was awarded to the one remaining compliant tenderer Kyron Street Furniture, trading as the Big Belly Bin Company.

The locations chosen for inclusion in the trial were Rathfarnham Village main street, Rathfarnham Castle park and Rosemount Shopping Centre at Marian Road.  A total of 7 existing standard litter bins in Rathfarnham Village were removed and replaced by 5 solar powered bins, 4 standard litter bins in the Castle playground were removed and replaced with one solar powered bin and 2 standard bins at Rosemount shops were removed and replaced by 2 solar powered units. 

The trial commenced in November and the 6 month period has nearly elapsed with 24 weeks of data available.  The data available from these ‘smart’ litter bins has been examined and below is a summary of the findings.  It should be noted that the service provided when standard litter bins were in place consisted of the operative visiting the bin each day and emptying it when required, and this was considered to be servicing of the bin every day.  With the smart bins in place it was possible, for the most part, to respond to alarms sent by the system requesting that the bin be serviced when the preset fullness level is reached.  On some occasions the smart bins were emptied before the fullness level was reached and this is deemed to be inefficient servicing by the system.  This point will be explained further below. 

Features of the bin

• The ‘Big Belly’ bin is substantially larger than the standard litter bin, and when the ability of the unit to compact the waste is accounted for it is estimated that the capacity of this type of unit is 8 times that of the standard 90 litre bin.
• The compactor is powered by a solar power unit which makes it compliant with the Council’s resource management objectives under the Climate Change Action Plan.

• The bin contains a sensor which monitors the ‘fullness level’ of the bin.

• The sensor can be preset to send a warning message when waste reaches a predetermined level, such as 80% of full.

• Alarms are sent to supervisory staff and the operative to advise them that the bin requires attention.

• There is also a visual alarm which can be seen by passing members of staff or the public.

• The bins can be opened by foot pedal which means that they do not need to be touched by hand.

• The bin opening is covered at all times therefore no waste can escape and animals and birds cannot scavenge from the bin.

• The smart system records and stores all data relating to bin servicing and the fullness level on emptying.

• The bin contains 2 side panels which can be used for advertising however the potential for these to generate an income which would offset against the cost of the bin has not been explored as yet.

Data

The report generated by the smart bin system is attached.  In summary it shows the following –

• The number of collections which would have been provided to the 13 standard litter bins over the period of the trial is 2,184.

• The actual number of collections provided to the 8 smart bins which replaced them was 320.

• This represents an 85% reduction in the number of collections provided.

• Of the 320 collections made, 226 of these happened when the 80% fullness level had been reached representing an efficiency level of 71%.

• 96 of these collections were made when the fullness level had not been reached and the bin had not sent an alarm, this represents an inefficiency level of 29%.

• While 96 of these collections were unnecessary at the time they were made the decision to make them was an operational one based on availability of staff resources and other issues.

• Many of the ‘unnecessary’ collections were made during the period of Covid 19 restrictions when there were limits on the staff resources available.

Options.

It is clear that this type of bin system offers the opportunity to substantially restructure the litter bin collection system, if smart bins were to be introduced to replace existing ones.  The following could be considered -

• The number of street litter bin (approximately 650 at present) and the number of park litter bins (approximately 150) could be substantially reduced.  This would mean some locations losing litter bins and this could be problematic.  A further exercise would be required to consider which locations should lose their litter bins and also to determine the optimum replacement ratio of smart bins for standard bins.

• There are bins currently in areas of high footfall and others in low footfall areas which could be looked at separately.  Bins in high footfall areas require to be collected daily and in some cases could be emptied more often, the higher capacity offered by the compactor bins may help to address this issue. 

• Bins in low footfall areas require only weekly or twice weekly collections.  The alarm system would enable an operative to be sent out to these bins when they are ready for collection, whereas at the minute they have to be included in a planned collection route and checked daily to establish if they need to be collected. 

• It is clear that the number of staff assigned to this work, currently 5, could be substantially reduced with some staff reassigned to other work.  The vehicles they currently operate would also be available for other work.

• The liner for this litter bin can be replaced with a liner on wheels which can be emptied by a rear end loading refuse truck.  This would remove all manual handling from the task which would enable the fullness level of the bin to be set at 100% of bin capacity thereby creating further efficiency.

• There is potential for the side panels of the bin to be used for advertising and to be rented out for this purpose.  There is potentially an income to be generated from this and this potential should be examined and determined and could be offset against the installation of these bins.

• The cost of these bins at approximately €6,000 per bin is substantial and is approximately 15 times that of the standard litter bin.  The costs involved in replacing a large part of the litter bin  stock would be substantial also, for example approximately 160 of these units would cost around €1m.