CleanScapes Cleans Up

David Weigel | October 24, 2007

Remember that small Seattle sanitation company that was bidding for a huge city contract? The one whose founder/CEO dreams of tiny cameras to monitor whether or not people recycle their garbage?

If [CEO Chris] Martin is allowed to implement what he calls "my best idea, my get-people-riled-up thing," we could all soon be subject to a kind of garbage audit, too. He wants to bring the equivalent of the red-light camera to your front curb. Just as the traffic camera captures you running through a stoplight, CleanScapes' incriminating photos would catch you improperly disposing of a milk carton. (It belongs in the recycling bin.)

Yeah, keep laughing. They just won the contract.

Seattle hasn't determined what collection practices it might change, Martin said. CleanScapes has made some unorthodox proposals, though, including mandatory waste audits and mounting cameras on garbage trucks to monitor the improper disposal of hazardous wastes. It also proposed garbage trucks downtown running on compressed natural gas, to cut noise.

Woohoo!