The Future of Trash Cans

I bet you never thought you’d see that headline on the blog, did you?

Up until now, trash cans have been stationary monoliths sitting in the corners of our rooms, their gaping mouths waiting for us to launch trash into them. Sometimes you hit the trash can, but other times you miss, and you end up crawling around on your hands and knees to pick up that dirty tissue or that crumpled piece of paper.

No more.

Thanks to a Japanese inventor, there is now a trashcan that will detect when trash is being thrown at it, and it will move so that it catches the airborne trash every time. Even if you have terrible aim.

Yeah. This is a real thing. Welcome to 2012.

If I’ve embedded this video correctly, you should start watching at 2:25 so you can see this miracle machine in action [Update: I haven’t embedded it correctly. Please manually skip forward to 2:25.] Check it out:

 

4 thoughts on “The Future of Trash Cans”

  1. That is unbelievable! I wonder what its range is. Are you going to get one?

    Also, on the subject of trash cans, kudos to Wash. U, your Alma Mater, for labeling all of their waste baskets as either “recycling” or “landfill”. In my opinion, landfill really makes you think about what you put in there because it evokes an image of that piece of trash going into the ground. I’m not sure if Wash. U has been doing this for years, but I noticed it the other day when I was on the grounds, and I was quite impressed.

    Reply
    • I don’t think it’s on the market yet–the inventor is still perfecting it.

      That’s very clever of Wash U. I didn’t realize they did that!

      Reply
  2. My deep-seated admiration of Japanese inventors stems back to the time I first heard about their toilet innovations (e.g. heated seats, automatic washing, electronic consoles. There’s an entire Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilets_in_Japan).

    Now that there is a Japanese trash can that will automatically move to catch the trash, I wonder if it’s only a matter of time until there’s a Japanese toilet that will automatically move to catch the…

    Well, you get the point.

    Reply

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