Originally published at: This smart trash can will incinerate your waste before scheduling a pickup | Boing Boing
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Tired: Expensive WiFi burn barrels.
Wired: Hungry chipped raccoons
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Based on the article, this is really a compost dehydrator; you’ll still have to handle the actual trash just like you normally would. I wonder what their plans are to monetize the actual trash can you’ll still have to take to the curb?
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So…they are a chicken feed manufacturer that would like for me to pay them for the privilege of providing their raw materials?
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How on earth do people get investors for this stuff?
Everything doesn’t need wifi.
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And don’t forget the penalties you’ll probably be forced to pay when a plastic fork makes it past their “smart” sieve.
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Which I would deserve for being a very unprofessional B2B supply partner /s
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You have scheduled pickups? Our binmen just come every Friday & if you’ve put the wrong bins out - tough, they’ll leave them.
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When there is an absence of useful/sufficient public service (urban compost removal infrastructure) the free market rushes to fill the gap! And instead of WASTING tax dollars for NO REWARD, this magical system takes your money and actually MAKES PEOPLE RICH*
*Disclaimer: The person getting rich is not - and never will be - you. You will be paying more than you would in taxes, as additional funds are needed for “executive expenses” (at least they’re not going to a greedy, corrupt beauraucrat, am I right!!!) The service can, and definitely will be terminated very soon as the business fails, but have no fear, the founders will still get rich, so no worries!
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Well, the postman picks it up. If you are putting out a 10lb box of dried garbage every week you should also plan on the expense of tipping your postperson about $1000 each Winter Holiday Season so they don’t hate you for the huge burden you are placing on them
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Their FAQ says the average family about once a month but all they say is prepaid shipping box, there is no mention of the shipper.
I wonder how many people can just leave a prepaid package out to be picked up. They can’t be sending a UPS truck can they?
It would be fun to see a porch pirate steal a box and then open it.
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The Ars Technica article says that it’s USPS
“boxes with pre-paid us postage. using the app, they can book a pickup from the usps and mail the dried-out organic material back to mill’s hq. (users can also get more pre-stamped boxes for free from mill through the app)” (note - NOT FREE - $33 a month 
)
Once a month is less bad. Though I assume that anybody using one of these is probably also receiving a lot of other subscription stuff. Also if you use a food delivery box service I suppose you would need this less since you should have less food waste…
ETA: weird. Copypasta from Ars stripped all capitalization!
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Wow. I massively undertip.
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I just hate it when the result of an “innovation” involves dumping extra work on already overworked and underpaid people, like postal workers. It sucks for them
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A bad idea that’s been around before, like the Lomi:
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Our mailboxes are at the end of the road, the mail lady only drives down the street if a package won’t fit in the box.
I can’t imagine having her come down the road to pick up my trash. I would have to tip her every time.
This gets more silly the more I think about it.
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The Boing Boing article and headline says “incinerator” and the actual product site says “dehydrator”. Now colour me simple, but there’s a world of difference between something that sits in your kitchen, connected to the IoS over WiFi, that actively sets fire to things, and something that just warms them up a bit. Just as there’s a world of difference between a harmless clickbait title and slander of product.
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So to save the planet from too much compost, we need a machine to dehydrate our compost? I mean you are using electricity to speed up something that naturally occurs? Not to mention the extra fuel burned to transport, the extra packaging, the extra plastic and materials to make the device. I think it would be more worthwhile to fight for a green bin program in your municipality than have a machine eating power to solve a space problem.
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The Follow up is great, where he uses a cheap Bread Maker to get basically the same results.
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Yeah, that sounds a bit problematic. Do they have self-igniting dumpsters for larger needs?
Meanwhile, the neighbor across the street still doesn’t have any kitchen garbage at all. Even with getting take-out delivered all the time, you’d think there’d be some organics.
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