Big Belly Chokes (Updated)

UPDATE: Big Belly Vice President Richard Kennelly responded to this post. Read his response here.

Another stupid idea comes to Chicago: Hi-tech garbage cans on the streets. After a decade of the failed Blue Bag recycling program, the Idiot Mayor Daley has decided that a complex, very expensive (about $4,000 each), tempting-to-vandals trash can will keep our streets cleaner and save the city some money.

The 49th Ward of Rogers Park has its own Big Bellys. Alderman Joe Moore and his Band of Fools are so blinded by anything that calls itself "green" that they just can't help themselves. Pictured here is a brand new Big Belly near the CTA's Red Line Morse Station in Rogers Park. A few days after this photo was taken, the damned thing was already broken (next photo below), choking on trash with a trash stuck open on Tuesday night, May 6th. I tried to close it but could not.

According to DevCorp North, "The Mayor's office and the Department of Street and Sanitation purchased 50 Big Bellys to be placed along Michigan Avenue and in Millenium [sic] Park. The Department of Planning and Development is encouraging economic development agencies throughout the city to implement this program. The 49th Ward Street and Sanitation Superintendent Mike Erickson is committed to servicing the four Big Bellys." (Source)

Not everyone is blindly enthusiastic about this overpriced, over-engineered trash can.

According to EcoMetro, "Other than the argument that these trashcans are ridiculously expensive, Treehugger.com has the best argument against this “solution,” stating the fact that naturally occurring microorganisms in compacted trash do not obtain enough oxygen, and thus work slower to decompose the trash. Treehugger.com suggests that these trashcans should instead be used to compact separated recyclables, reducing service and transportation costs for recycling paper, cans, and plastics." (Full Article...)

So the 49th Ward has four Big Bellys. One of them is already broken. It's a matter of time before the local hoodlums start vandalizing them. However, the 49th Ward seems to now have fewer trash cans on the streets than before the Big Bellys invaded.

I first noticed the removal of standard trash cans on April 19, before Big Belly came to Rogers Park. The trash can in front of the 7-Eleven at N. Sheridan and W. Pratt was missing. I snapped this photo of the spot where it stood for years. The trash can that was at the southeast corner of W. Morse and N. Greenview is also gone (next photo, down).

Do the geniuses at DevCorp and Ald. Moore's office think that there is now a lesser need for trash cans, because they have four new Big Bellys? Just because Big Belly can hold more trash, does that eliminate the need for trash receptacles at other locations, be they standard or solar powered?

It is said that fewer trash pickups will be required because Big Belly compacts trash and therefore holds a bigger load. But nobody is saying how often the machinery inside will have to be serviced.

This is dumb, magical thinking on the part of an Alderman who told us all to just ignore that little asbestos problem recently. It is idiocy on the part of DevCorp North and the SSA #24, who are probably more interested in the status of having the Big Bellys than in actually reducing the amount of trash and litter on the streets. If they were truly concerned about reducing litter on W. Morse Avenue, for example, they would not have removed the old fashioned cans and would actually bring more in.

In the two-block stretch of W. Morse between N. Ashland and N. Glenwood, there are now only two trash cans: One Big Belly and one standard can. Litter, a chronic problem here in Joe Moore's Ghetto, will only increase with the warm weather unless more cans are brought in.

Although Big Bellys are expensive, they are allowing some cities, such as Chicago, to test them at no charge. "The Big Belly trash can company gave 50 solar-powered compacting trash cans to the city as a test run, to show the city how much money it can save with them," writes The Green Beat.

Eventually, however, the trial period will run out and the city will have to put up some green of another kind.

RELATED:
- BigBelly Solar (Corporate Web Site)
- BigBelly’s $4K Solar Powered Trash Compactor: Making Trash Worse ...
- High-tech trash bin uses solar power
- Big Belly solar compactor now squeezes recycling
- 'Big Belly' Arrives, Ready To Eat Trash - Or at Least Crush It ...