Street Litter

Litter is waste or rubbish that has been disposed improperly, without consent and at wrong location. The term ‘littering’means throwing or leaving objects lying on the ground instead of disposing them in the litter. Littering has economic, legal and environmental impacts – millions of Euro are spent annually cleaning up litter, fines are imposed on those caught littering, it causes damage to plants and animals and littering impacts negatively on the tourism industry. The PEL Waste Reduction Equipment IoT litter bins save councils, local authorities and private sector customers on the total cost of their litter bin collection service

The PEL120SSB (120 Litre capacity) & PEL240SSB (240 litre capacity) feature an integrated compaction system and an ultrasonic bin-fill sensor linked to a cloud-based data management dashboard which communicates bin-fill levels via the SigFox or GSM networks. The SolarStreetBinTM cuts collections traffic and associated emissions and ultimately, overall litter collection costs.

1. The most common littered objects include fast food, paper, gum, aluminium, glass, plastic & cigarette butts.
2.  Cigarette butts take up to ten years to decompose because of cellulose acetate, contrary to the popular perception that they decompose in only a matter of days.
3. Litter on streets forces local authorities to divert public money away from public services like schools & roads.
4. A huge chunk of  litter could be recycled including plastic bottles & drinks cans – all easily recycled & worth money and jobs to the local economy.
5. The ‘invisible’ costs of litter can affect us all – people living on littered streets could expect to see their house prices devalued.
6. Even more worryingly, broken glass, rusty cans & lit cigarettes left lying around can cost people & animals their health or in extreme cases, their lives.
7. If litter is already present, people don’t see the harm in adding a little bit more. If an area’s clean already, it helps if residents stay vigilant & keep it that way – prevention is key.
8. Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.
9. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours — or the equivalent of approximately 3 litres of gasoline.
10. Discarded fruit & vegetables, even though they are natural count as litter too – a banana peel can survive on the street for up to two years in a temperate climate.