By John DeFore

Spotted recently on the streets of a left-leaning college town: an “Action Packed Trash Can!” that, unlike the bins we’re used to seeing on Austin’s Drag (Guadalupe Street, alongside the University of Texas campus) wasn’t in danger of spilling over with student debris.

The “Big Belly” can, you see, is a fully enclosed garbage receptacle (more like a mailbox than a regular trash bin). When it starts to get full, it squashes its contents down with 1,200 pounds of force. That allows it to hold up to five times what a similarly sized trash bin does, meaning diesel-spewing sanitation trucks (which are hardly fuel-efficient, and spend most of their time idling) make one-fifth the trips to collect the trash. In theory, that’s an 80% reduction in fuel consumption and greenhouse emissions.

But what about the power required to run the compactor? That’s the beauty of the Belly: it runs completely on juice generated by solar panels on the top of its (recycled ABS plastic) body. That makes it perfect for beaches, where NPR spotted the invention in use last year, and for parks where open-air bins provide filthy buffets for birds and squirrels. Several cities also have started using Big Bellies, including Boston, Queens, Baltimore, Chicago and Ventura, Calif.

The high-tech tubs aren’t cheap, but the manufacturer (born Seahorse Power Company, now renamed Big Belly Solar) boasts that they pay for themselves in a year and a half, once you consider reduced collection costs. What’s more, while they compress refuse to 20% its normal size, the compacted trash isn’t so dense it can’t be sifted through for recyclables. Coming soon: Cans that know when they’re full and can wirelessly phone home for a pickup.

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