Muth’s Truths: January 16, 2017

Smart Trash Cans vs. Dumb Las Vegas Monopoly

We’ve all heard of smart phones.  But have you heard of smart trash cans?

A recent article by Kristin Musulin of WasteDive.com talked about consumer “smart” trash cans that were introduced at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

“Whirlpool announced the Zera Food Recycler,” Musulin reported, “an in-home bin that can turn a week’s worth of food scraps into fertilizer, as reported by Waste Today. The appliance works with ‘a simple push of a button’ and can be remotely operated through a mobile app.”

The “Zera Food Recycler,” Musulin continued, “will not only keep organic materials out of the landfill, but will also offer a composting solution to consumers who are not offered organics collection through their hauler.”

Pretty cool.

On the commercial side, I visited the Verizon Wireless Innovation center in San Francisco while attending a post-election conference back in November. There I learned a new term: IoT (Internet of Things).  And one of the “things” was Big Belly Solar trash cans, which “help municipalities reduce costs and track waste and recycling through wireless technology.”

“Solar panels on top of the Big Belly Solar trash receptacles produce energy to compact trash as items are placed in the container,” Verizon explains. “This means the city doesn’t have to collect trash as often.”

“The solar-powered trash compacters,” Verizon continues, “have helped the city of Greensboro make better decisions for routing and collection, which leads to saved time, money, even a reduced carbon footprint.”

Very, very cool.

Now the reason I bring this up is an issue I wrote about just before Christmas.  Republic Services, which has a guaranteed monopoly on residential and commercial trash collection in Las Vegas, is asking the city to extend its current contract for an additional 15 years…five years before the current contract expires.

WITH NO COMPETITIVE BIDDING!

In light of how quickly technology is changing our lives on a daily basis, that’s insane.

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Cheers.

Dr. Chuck Muth, PsD
Professor of Psephology (homeschooled)
Nevada’s #1 Irritator of Liberals and RINOs

P.S.  Trump’s Law: Don’t back down, double down.  Just the kind of leadership the GOP has been missing since, oh, around 1988.

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