‘BIGBELLY’ waste bins are being installed in Taunton and Wellington to see if they can help devour some of the costs of rubbish bin collections.

The bins, which are being used on a trial basis, use solar energy to power compactor units that compress the litter, allowing up to eight times more waste to be stored before the containers need emptying.

And cloud technology enables an alert to be sent to staff back at the DLO base when the bin needs to be emptied via text or e-mail.

A Bigbelly unit can hold eight times more waste than the average bin and the compactor exerts 1,200lbs of force, running on less than 5Wh per day.

The council can access a map of its streets and parks to locate each bin and its current capacity status, helping schedule collections efficiently, reducing the carbon footprint of the collection service.

Cllr Patrick Berry, who holds the authority’s environmental services portfolio, said: “We will be testing out the bins to see whether they can help us deliver real efficiencies in terms of cost, collections and helping to keep our town centres clean and tidy.

“I’m delighted Taunton Deane is prepared to look at new solutions that harness some incredible technology to tackle a very basic problem – litter.”