Posted on 07/21/2013 8:59:34 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
Syracuse, NY - There is a $4,000 trash can at the zoo in Syracuse.
There's another one near a downtown parking lot outside the OnCenter.
Taxpayers bought them with federal stimulus money.
Onondaga County's Deputy County Executive Matt Millea would like to use state money to buy as many as 300 more and put them all over Syracuse. That could cost more than $1 million.
Millea is proud of the "Big Belly" solar trash cans - even though each one costs about 21 times more than a traditional municipal can.
Each Big Belly is powered by solar panels that operate a compactor that can crush 150 gallons of trash so it fits in one can. That's five times more than a typical trash can holds, according to the manufacturer.
That's not all. It also has a wireless connection that beams an alert to staff in the mothership office when the trash can is full and ready to be emptied....
Stimulus funding, more formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was intended to make jobs.
The whole idea of installing Big Bellies is to reduce the workload for municipalities.
(Excerpt) Read more at syracuse.com ...
Talk about wasteful (pun intended)...
I’ve seen those same solar-powered compactors along the sidewalk in Tarpon Springs, FL!
Wouldn’t it be a hoot if somebody stole them and sold them to a recycling place for about 80.00 in scrap metal?
The solar panels are worth more than that.
At about 1000 these puppies start to make sense. Not 4000
They actually save a good deal on garbage collection. Mafia will not be pleased...
And that is a Republican run county..........in New York of course.
Spoiled children never learn the difference between want and need.
So the federales borrow from the Chinese to give money to the city to buy an expensive trash can to reduce the number of city employees and thus the amount of payroll spent locally. Doesn't sound so stimulative for the city. Or maybe the are just reducing the workload so the city employees have more time to play grab ass with each other on the taxpayers' dime.
Appears labor savings could justify the cost.
They are 1000. Installation and set up is $3000.
Yes, but the stimulus was supposed to create, not eliminate, jobs. Personally, I have no problem with the county laying off a few union trash haulers. I just find the irony here to be yet another example of government (in this case the feds) creating unintended consequences.
Jobs were created making the barrels.
I’m going to design a solar toilet with LED’s. It will flush automatically while providing light to places where the sun don’t shine. Anybody want in on this?
Jobs that vaporized the instant the grant money ran out.
Biography of Columbia U educated Matt Millea, who is “proud” of these trash cans.
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP06/20130416/100518/HHRG-113-AP06-Bio-MilleaM-20130416.pdf
“launched New York State’s Green Innovation Grant Program, which is now in its fourth round of funding”
Party affiliation in 2009 in Onondaga County
Dem 37% GOP 32%
http://cnyvitals.org/onondaga/civic-engagement/voter-registration
In 2012 Onondaga County
Obama won
61% (112,664 votes)
to Romney’s
39% (72,807 votes)
More info on Onondaga County's Deputy County Executive Matt Millea, who loves the trash cans
Mr. Millea serves on the Board of Directors of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, and the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency
It’s the scanners, transmitters, cameras and bomb-sniffers that are embedded in them that run up the costs.
Everyone that walks by is scanned...cell phone, credit card info, pacemaker (if pertinent). Practically any electronic device a passerby has on them is accessed, downloaded, decrypted, and subsequently uploaded to the NSA via satellite connection.
Then, there are the facial recognition cameras that kick in...
Yes, I’m being sarcastic...but, not by much.
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