Smart waste sorting bins added to Red Square

Four new waste, recycling and compost stations were installed in Red Square in December to replace the 16 garbage and three recycle bins that were previously in the area. These smart waste and recycling systems are manufactured by Bigbelly.

The project was put together by students and faculty at Western Washington University and received a Sustainable Action Fund grant in June 2015.

“The funding paid for the installation of the stations as well as upcoming education and outreach surrounding the bins,” Sustainable Action Funds outreach coordinator Kyle Wunderlin said in an email.

In their application for funding, the students and faculty behind the project said they hope to “encourage better waste sorting behavior from students by providing more compost infrastructure in one of the highest student traffic areas on campus.”

The stations are positioned in Red Square in front of the humanities building, Frasier Hall, Haggard Hall, and on the side of Bond Hall facing Miller Hall.

According to the product details on Bigbelly’s website, these solar powered bins sense when they are full and use a cloud network to notify maintenance workers. Bigbelly says on its website that the cloud network will help maintenance workers know when cans need to be emptied, which keeps workers from having to guess or check in person. In addition, the high capacity stations use some of their collected solar energy to quietly compact their landfill contents, allowing them to hold five times the standard bin capacity.

Wunderlin said that these four stations were part of a pilot project and that the university would consider building more stations if they performed well in Red Square, according an article written for The Western Front.