To help cut down on overflowing and smelly trash bins in the downtown area, Guilford officials are now looking at a more ecofriendly way to collect trash and recycling on the green and downtown sidewalks.

At a recent Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting, board members listened to a proposal from Parks & Recreation Director Rick Maynard. Maynard said while the town works to pick up trash as fast as possible in the area, keeping up can be a challenge during the summer.

“As we all know, trash is unsightly,” he said. “We have barrels in front of the stores and trash is sometimes overflowing.”

A group of real estate agents in town came together to try to find a reasonable solution. The idea on the table is an ecofriendly, solar-powered bin that contains both a trash compactor and a recycling unit. Maynard said the Green Committee has approved the idea and the plan is to try to test out one of these units made by a company called Big Belly on the southwest corner of the Green.

“We thought we would give it a shot,” he said. “It’s solar powered…and the other thing is because it compacts, it holds the equivalent of five barrels, so we can get a lot more trash in there.”

In addition, the bin has the ability to send a message to a cell phone to alert members of staff of when the bin is getting full. Maynard said he spoke with officials in Madison, which has three of these units, and reported that there had been no issues with their units since purchase.

Once compacted, the trash in the bin would weigh about 50 pounds. Some members of the BOS expressed concerns over employees picking up 50 pound bags, but First Selectman Matt Hoey said all employees in this department have to be able to lift that much weight according to the current job description.

“We don’t think it will be an issue because again if we think it is too heavy when it is full, we will empty it when it is half full because again we get that notification when it is filling up,” said Maynard.

Maynard said this type of bin—due to the size and shape of the deposit slots—might help cut down on people dumping household trash in municipal bins, something he said isn’t a huge issue but does happen.

The other perk is this first unit comes at no cost to the town. The $6,000 needed to purchase the double unit with the trash compactor and recycling component will be donated by the group of real estate agents that first proposed the bins.

The BOS accepted the donation and Hoey said it will be interesting to see how the unit is received by the public.

“This is being done through fundraising for the first one as the demonstration unit and then we will do an evaluation to see if we should consider others,” he said. “I think this is a great opportunity for us to try something new.”