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The Waste Bins Near Our Apartment
I've mentioned the waste bins we take our garbage and recycling to. Here's what they look like! Restafval (garbage) in the left foreground. Plastics and metals in the right foreground. The midground bins are for cardboard and paper and often fill up even though there are two. The furthest set are of bins are are for textiles (left) and glass (right).
The green and gray metal structure behind the bins is the flower-stand I've mentioned (closed up for the day in this picture). And all the way across the street, there's a white sign with a blue circle: that's the sign for StevaB electronics, the shop that our apartment is above. If the white folding canopy the flower shop puts out wasn't there, you could see our windows above the sign.
The bins have sensors in them that detect when they are full. That triggers a truck to come out and empty the contents. The trucks have a hydraulically actuated boom with a business end that grabs those square metal columns with disks that stick out the top of the bin. It lifts the whole thing up out of the ground and over the truck. The bins are quite large: four or five foot deep rectangular boxes whose tops are formed by those corrugated metal sheets around the receptacles. A mechanism on the boom makes the bottom of those bins drop open, emptying their contents into the truck. Then the driver sets the bin back in the ground and drives away. It's a nifty system!
Just out of frame is the card-reader on the restafval bin. In retrospect, I should have made sure to include it. Those planters around some bins are relatively new. We got something in the mail about them, saying that they were intended to beautify the area and encourage people not to leave trash that doesn't fit in the bins sitting next to them. That plan has met with mixed success, as you can see from the garbage bag sitting next to the plastics and metals bin.
The green and gray metal structure behind the bins is the flower-stand I've mentioned (closed up for the day in this picture). And all the way across the street, there's a white sign with a blue circle: that's the sign for StevaB electronics, the shop that our apartment is above. If the white folding canopy the flower shop puts out wasn't there, you could see our windows above the sign.
The bins have sensors in them that detect when they are full. That triggers a truck to come out and empty the contents. The trucks have a hydraulically actuated boom with a business end that grabs those square metal columns with disks that stick out the top of the bin. It lifts the whole thing up out of the ground and over the truck. The bins are quite large: four or five foot deep rectangular boxes whose tops are formed by those corrugated metal sheets around the receptacles. A mechanism on the boom makes the bottom of those bins drop open, emptying their contents into the truck. Then the driver sets the bin back in the ground and drives away. It's a nifty system!
Just out of frame is the card-reader on the restafval bin. In retrospect, I should have made sure to include it. Those planters around some bins are relatively new. We got something in the mail about them, saying that they were intended to beautify the area and encourage people not to leave trash that doesn't fit in the bins sitting next to them. That plan has met with mixed success, as you can see from the garbage bag sitting next to the plastics and metals bin.
