What Happened?
London is the test site for a new company providing hi-tech recycling receptacles to the city in exchange for creating a wireless network that taps into nearby cellphone users to send advertising messages.
The Goal
A recent article in the Atlantic Cities reports on a company named Renew that bills itself as the leader in on-street permanent displays. By providing the receptacles to the city for free, London receives a valuable commodity at no cost, and Renew creates the ability to serve up mobile advertisements to pedestrians using their cellphones in the vicinity of the recycling bins.
How It Works
Currently, the city receives five percent of messaging time on the LED screens displayed on the sides of the bins. London is using that messaging time to provide public information. The bins are provided to the city free of charge, but refuse pick-up is still the responsibility of the city’s waste management operations.
Renew expects to expand outside of London in the coming year, focusing on major cities throughout the world. While the pros outweigh the cons for cities, in nature due to the futuristic bins, the question begs whether citizens are winners as well. The concept of tracking pedestrians via wifi as they walk through a city is ripe with issues the ACLU may potentially take issue with. However, according to Renew, tracking “cookies” similar to the ones on your internet browser, will be captured by your mobile device. Once the cookies are planted, the pedestrians “habits” can be tracked allowing for advertisers to place advertisements to pull you into their local retail store.
Currently, the EU doesn’t require mobile phone users to be notified when cookies are being added to their phones, the opposite is true for home internet browsing. The US also has significant regulations concerning cookies as well, although whether these apply to mobile phone internet browsing is not immediately known.
Smart Trash Bins
Gov1 covered about Big Belly’s foray into smart trash bins. While these must be rented by cities, the bins have the ability to email those responsible for waste pickup when the receptacles are 85 percent full. While the bins are expensive (130 bins will cost the UK’s Nottingham $160k annually), they do have the ability to reduce collections by up to 80 percent. That’s the case in Philadelphia where the smart trash bins are saving Philadelphia $1.8M annually.