Duluth, Minnesota Teams Up with the Sun to Take Out its Trash

The Duluth waterfront, on Lake Superior. 

Photo: rococohobo under a Creative Commons license.

Duluth, Minnesota is taking out its trash- and the sun is helping out. The City on Lake Superior announced on Thursday the debut of its Toss It Green initiative, to install twenty solar-powered trash compactors along its Lakewalk. The containers, half of which will be for trash, half for recycling, have built-in solar panels to power them, and will hold up to five times more refuse than traditional garbage cans. That means Duluth city workers won't have to head out every week to pick up and replace full bags. In fact, they never have to go out unnecessarily- each compactor has a sensor and a communication system, to alert workers when they are full. And if it rains? Each compactor also has a battery to keep it running when the sun isn't out.

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