Toronto built a smarter green bin...ha ha
In January, as the city of Toronto rolled out its final fleet of new raccoon-resistant green bins, Suzanne MacDonald was flooded with emails from citizens fretting about the fate of the masked bandits known for pillaging our food waste.
The $31-million contract gave us roughly half a million bins, a decade of maintenance and a promise: that raccoons would have great difficulty penetrating the clever new receptacles.
There are two ways to open the new bin. The first is by hand, which is easy: you simply turn the handle from the secured vertical position to the open horizontal. The second method is tipping the bin upside-down to an angle of 110 degrees, which triggers the release of the gravity lock. The gravity feature allows the robotic arm on Toronto waste trucks to do the dumping, saving employees from injury. Doubt was cast on the impermeability of the new green bins in April, when footage surfaced of a raccoon in the Beach neighbourhood easily turning the handle and popping one open.
The headlines were gleeful: “It took this raccoon 30 seconds to break into a raccoon-proof green bin.”
watch the videos. https://www.thestar....er-raccoon.html