December 21, 2017

Stockholm City Götapriset

To handle rapidly growing debris in Norrmalm's most visited park environments, he developed a new sanitation strategy where smart trash cans are one of the main components.

More efficient park management with smart trash baskets

To handle rapidly growing debris in Norrmalm's most visited park environments, he developed a new sanitation strategy where smart trash cans are one of the main components.

Here are the results:

  • A 70% reduction in the number of environmentally burdensome transports to empty bins in parks where the sanitation strategy has been implemented.
  • Radically reduced littering problems. Today, 60 percent less time is spent hand-picking rubbish in the parks.
  • Far fewer trash baskets in the parks. But the deployment of the trash baskets that remain is preceded today by very careful analysis. The exact location of the trash bins in the park environment is continuously optimized using real-time analytics tools connected to smart bin systems.

How it works BigBelly

In a smart trash can is a sensor that continuously reads the garbage level. A built-in mobile device sends the information over the cellular networks to a central application. A smart trash can usually also contains a compressor that compresses the debris in the basket. The compression allows for seven to eight times more debris in the basket, greatly extending the time between drains.

All this is powered by a built-in battery that is charged by solar cells. The smart trash baskets that Norrmalm's park management has purchased – Bigbelly – also has a hatch that makes the litter inaccessible to shipowners and prevents birds from tearing it out of the basket.

A very important part of a smart trash can system is the associated software. Here are analysis tools where you can accurately see in real time how park visitors use each individual trash basket (More about how Norrmalm's district administration works with these analysis functions on pages 10-11). The software part usually also includes a logistics program that can optimize routes between the trash baskets that are getting full and need to be emptied.

Norrmalm's parks and park culture in Stockholm

Norrmalm is the district that houses almost all of Stockholm's city centre. Here you will find, for example, Sergels torg, Hamngatan and Hötorgs-scrapers. But in the district there are also several of Stockholm's most beautiful, most classic and popular park environments – Observatorielunden, Vasaparken, Tegnérlunden and Vanadislunden, to name a few examples. It is here that Bo Höglund has been working as a park engineer for more than ten years.

During those years, he has seen how stockholmers' park life has changed. Today, the trend is that Stockholmers spend more and more time in Stockholm's parks. You eat and hang out with friends in parks. More and more leisure activities are being trained and distributed to the city's parks. Even preschools and schools are putting more and more of their activities in the parks," says Bo Höglund. "The parks have become a kind of second living room for many people in Stockholm," he says.

The popularity of the parks has also increased as the City of Stockholm renovated them and adapted the park environments for an increasing number of different types of activities. "Vasaparken is a good example of this. Previously, large parts of the park were occupied by a dusty gravel field that few visited. But in 2006 Vasaparken was remade, which led to a huge boost in the number of visitors to the park, says Bo Höglund.

These are all factors that together have contributed to a sharp increase in visitor pressure in Stockholm's parks. In addition, the population in a city area like Norrmalm is increasing faster than the available park area. Of course, this also contributes to an increase in visitor pressure in the parks.

In norrmalm's district there are currently four square meters of available park area per inhabitant.

In Tegnérlunden, 28 ordinary park trash baskets could be replaced with just six smart trash cans.

Today we have to go out every day and see if the rubbish bins need to be emptied. With smart trash baskets, we only have to go out when the basket is really full. Following the success of Norrmalm's new sanitation strategy, more district administrations in the City of Stockholm have followed suit.

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