More than 1,000 “smart” trash cans are now deployed citywide in Pittsburgh. “Based on our analysis, we expect that the smart litter cans will give us the ability to make process improvements that will reduce the amount of labor hours spent on emptying garbage cans by at least half,” Matt Jacob, Department of Innovation and Performance project manager, said in the release. “As a result, [the Department of Public Works] will be able to reallocate those resources to other tasks.”
The city piloted the 95 “smart” cans in 2015 in the West End and southern neighborhoods, and Public Works proposed adopting the cans citywide in 2017. The city earmarked a total of $670,000 in the 2017 to 2019 capital budgets for smart can purchases.