By Marc Larocque
As returning students trek to Mission Hill, they may find the place cleaner and greener than it has been in the past.
There, on Tremont Street in front of Flann O’Brien’s, patrons stuff paper plates into the shiny, green, rectangular unit that invokes the design of a more sleek, modern mailbox. Beside the Parker Hill bus stop, commuters shove their coffee cups into the pod complete with solar cells.
On Monday, Sept. 8, more than a dozen self-powered trash compactors were dropped off on Huntington Avenue alongside the Longwood Medical area and the businesses surrounding Brigham Circle, according to local reports.
The latest addition brings the total of BigBelly trash compactors in the city to 164.
In 2006, the city unloaded its first wave of the solar receptacles, placing 50 through its neighborhoods, according to local reports.
According to the website of BigBelly Solars, the supplier of the bins, the receptacles, created by a Jamaica Plain entrepreneur, uses solar power to crush waste. They can hold five times more than a typical trash can.
This, the company argues, provides financial efficiency in labor savings as well as fuel cost and the environmental efficiencies that follow.
Last spring, Mission Hill Main Streets (MHMS), which helps foster economic development in the area, reached out to community groups and city officials about expanding the use of high tech trash cans to Mission Hill’s commercial area.
“I heard people talking about litter and trash everywhere,” said Christine Rose, executive director of MHMS. “I went to community meetings. I scouted locations were there was a lack of bins and a need. I wanted at least three from Huntington to South Huntington.”
After MHMS was able to fund two BigBellys, Wentworth Institute of Technology jumped into negotiations and offered to fund five more of the machines. The city matched the contributions by both MHMS and Wentworth Institute of Technology.
Proponents say the bins smell less than traditional waste barrels and they don’t spill. Workers retrieve 40-pound trash bricks from the bins when they become full.
Department of Public Works officials initially observed that traditional barrels required average pickups four times a day while the new BigBellys now average collection once every other day, according to local media reports.
“They make kind of a statement that we care about the neighborhood,” said Rich Johnson, president of the community Alliance of Mission Hill, a volunteer community organization.
“They’re modern trash cans, they keep the trash contained so you don’t have to look at it. They look like a mailbox; the receptacle is small, so you can’t stick a household bag of trash in there.”
The compactors have been installed in several prime locations: Boston Common, Faneuil Hall, Downtown Crossing, Mattapan Square, Newbury Street and Boylston Street, according to local media reports.
