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Brussels buys €4,000 high-tech bins that send a message when full
Brussels city hall is to buy a batch of high-tech rubbish bins that send out a message when they need emptying, at a cost of €4,000 each.
The connected bins have already been tried out in New York, Amsterdam and Strasbourg - and 18 of them will enter service in the Brussels pedestrian zone by the end of this month.
Karine Lalieux, the Brussels city official with responsibility for public hygiene, said the technology will allow bin collectors to become more efficient and reduce their rounds by 80%.
As well as transmitting a message when they are nearly full, the bins can also be locked shut remotely, in case of a security scare for example.
After the pedestrian zone in downtown Brussels, another 10 bins will be installed around the EU district in the coming months.
Comments
Wow. 19 communes in Brussels. €112,000 of taxpayers' money for high-tech rubbish bins, ordered by the non-elected mayor of Brussels. 18 for his personal pet project, a hastily created pedestrian zone, and 10 for the EU district.
Speaks legions imo.
Ps: according to Le Soir and La Libre, the bins cost more than €4,000 each and the total cost to taxpayers will be €150,000.
On the face of it, this is a spectacular waste of taxpayers money. Nothing new there then. These communes seem determined to outspend each other.
If this actually helps to make the pedestrian zone cleaner then it will be money well spent but I doubt it. Empty beer cans are everywhere. The people drinking on the street are not likely to use the waste bins. The zone around the De Brouckère metro station and the steps in front of the Bourse are particularly bad. Why not spend the money cleaning these areas properly. I am sure some people will use the bins but there is an element that will not and these are the people that are making his area of town an eyesore.