High-Tech Trash Cans for Flatbush!

The future is coming to Flatbush Avenue – in the form of 20 brand-new, high-tech garbage cans.

Next year, the North Flatbush Business Improvement District plans to install 20 solar-powered, self-compacting trash cans to the avenue between Grand Army Plaza and Atlantic Avenue.

“Were trying to keep up with the times and go as green as possible,” said Sharon Davidson, executive director of the North Flatbush BID. “We also feel that economically it would help us with our trash removal – we have only one person to help us with our trash removal currently.”

The state-of-the-art trash bins can hold three to five times as much trash as regular garbage cans, meaning less overflowing garbage on the trash-plagued avenue.

Davidson said the move was at least in part due to anticipated crowds when the Barclay Center opens for the 2012-2013 basketball season.

“We expect the district to be a little messier, if you will,” she said.

The new receptacles will be installed thanks to $120,000 in capital funding given to the North Flatbush BID by Borough President Marty Markowitz. They will be installed as part of a face-lift for Flatbush Avenue that will, among other things, expand the triangular plazas at Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Carlton avenues and transform them into public spaces.

A solar-powered rod inside of the receptacles, which are produced by BigBelly Solar,  works to automatically compact trash as the bin fills up, meaning each bin can accommodate a maximum amount of waste. After being fully charged, the bins can last a whole three days without sunlight. The trash itself will still be collected by the city.

Last week, Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue on the avenue.

Residents were thrilled by the green idea.

“I’m a big fan of recycle, reduce, reuse,” said Jane Tomkiewicz, a Fifth Street resident who was passing by as the first solar-powered bin was installed on Fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. “I think this is awesome.”