Robotic trash bins tested at Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station — Asharq Al-Awsat
At Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, Japan, East Japan Railway is testing three mobile robotic trash bins. They are intended to deliver waste to cleaning staff in the underground concourse of the transport hub.
As Asharq Al-Awsat reports, Shinjuku Station serves more than 2.7 million passengers daily and is listed in the Guinness World Records as the world’s busiest railway station. In the part of the complex managed by East Japan Railway, trash bins are manually emptied more than ten times a day.
The robots move slowly
Each robotic bin is slightly more than one meter tall and moves at a speed of 20 centimeters per second. According to Shinya Kawamichi, an employee of JR East’s research division, the company is checking whether such equipment can operate safely amid the constant flow of people at the station.
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The robots were deliberately made slow so that passengers can throw trash into them and the devices can stop when necessary. The company is also assessing whether they can move through crowds and whether passengers will accept them.
Testing until the end of November
The testing will continue until the end of November. JR East wants to determine to what extent the mobile bins can make staff work easier and whether people will use them.
Only seven sets of trash and recycling bins are installed in the station area served by JR East. The number of waste bins has been reduced in recent years for cleanliness and security reasons. Some passengers explained the cleanliness of Japanese stations by saying that people take their trash home, while others welcomed the opportunity to dispose of it on the way.
