Pawleys Island
Solar bins have an appetite for trash
Rommie Presley put his foot on the pedal and placed a handful of soda cans and water bottles in the mouth of the trash can. He waited.
A green light flashed.
He hoped there would be the sound of the trash compacting, but it was still early and the cans and bottles were the first items fed into Pawleys Island’s new solar-powered trash cans.
Bigbelly solar compactors were installed this week at the First Street and Pritchard Street beach accesses by Presley and his crew, who form the town public works department.
Administrator Dan Newquist pitched the idea to Town Council over the winter. There are four of the solar compactors on the Murrells Inlet Marshwalk, where they prevent trash from blowing into the creek and reduce the frequency of collections.
“This is something the folks in the town really got behind,” he said.
The Pawleys Island Civic Association agreed to pay for the first two bins, which cost $4,000 each.
The town hoped to get a share of a proposed county capital projects sales tax to buy more compactors, but was told those didn’t qualify. Newquist is now looking for grant funding.
“I’m beyond excited about this,” he said as he put a plastic liner in the Bigbelly. “It’s a recognition that we’ve got a litter problem.”
Presley said they check the bins three times a week, but he will watch for the red light on the Bigbelly compactors to see how quickly they fill up.
