Street “Smart” Waste Management. Seen It? Better Yet: Used One? Big-Time Carbon Reduction Too.

In an upcoming post, which topic is recycling, one featured company is Under Armour.

This wildly successful company, with global HQ in Charm City, has also been an outstanding corporate neighbor. From its website about Big Belly Solar: “We’ve invested $150,000 to install solar powered trash compactors throughout the City of Baltimore. These Big Belly receptacles hold 5 times more waste than a normal trash can and communicate capacity information to the sanitation department, reducing collection frequency by up to 80%.”

BigBelly Solar is Jim Poss’s offspring. Poss, of Needham, MA, was working on making an electric car when he had a related ah-ha moment. That moment has resulted in major sanitation department savings–and substantial carbon reduction, potentially worldwide.

In the City of Brotherly Love, for instance, about $900,000 was saved by the sanitation department in its first year of BigBelly Solar use. For a major, positive contribution to carbon emissions reduction, see the explanation in a Time magazine piece here.

“‘The idea hit me probably about six years ago, when I was walking down a busy street in Boston,’ he says, ‘and I noticed that all the garbage cans were overflowing with mounds of garbage. And it just hit me that there’s a better way.'”