Trash Can Robot: From Dustbins to ABB Robots

Anyone who has dragged a full bin down an icy driveway before work can see the appeal of a trash can robot. This post looks at the household bin from the Paris dustbin of 1883 and the pedal bin of the 1920s to wheelie bins, sensor lids and the first robot bins that roll themselves to the curb or sort recyclables at home. It also covers the roaming robot bins now on trial at Tokyo's Shinjuku Station, what is still missing before such machines move into homes, and where ABB robots and mobile robots fit in the wider picture.

Wheelie bins for rubbish, recycling and food scraps lined up at the kerb in an inner suburb of Auckland, 2026. Photo: RadishSlice / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

How the household bin got a lid, a pedal and wheels

For centuries households threw ashes and kitchen scraps into the street or a shared pit. Britain's Public Health Act 1875 set out who should provide "receptacles for the temporary deposit and collection of dust ashes and rubbish", but it left the service to local councils. In Paris, an 1883 order signed by the prefect Eugène Poubelle required every household to have bins of 80 to 120 litres with a handle and a lid, three of them, so that paper, cloth, glass and oyster shells could be sorted from the rest. The French still call a bin a poubelle.

Eugène Poubelle, the Paris prefect whose 1883 order gave every household a lidded bin, photographed by Atelier Nadar. Photo: Atelier Nadar via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

The next improvement came from an efficiency expert. In the 1920s Lillian Moller Gilbreth, an industrial engineer who studied motion in factories and kitchens, invented the pedal bin, so a cook could open the lid with a foot and keep greasy hands off it. Outside, metal dustbins and later plastic bins on two wheels made the trip to the collection point easier, and many councils now issue one wheelie bin for each kind of waste. Moving the bin to the curb on collection day, though, remained a human job.

A pedal bin with its lid open, the design Lillian Gilbreth invented in the 1920s. Photo: DrThneed / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Moving bins showed up first as entertainment. Push the Talking Trash Can, a radio controlled robot bin built by Daniel Deutsch, rolled around Tomorrowland at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom from February 1995 to February 2014, steered by a hidden operator who chatted with guests. In the kitchen, bins got smarter more slowly. Frank Yang founded Simplehuman in 2000 to make a better trash can, and in the 2010s battery powered lids with infrared sensors let people open a bin without touching it at all.

Pipa, a talking recycling bin, chatting with children at Disney's Animal Kingdom in 2006. Photo: WillMcC / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Robot bins on the move today

The latest trial is in the world's busiest railway station. On 8 September 2026, East Japan Railway began testing three mobile trash bin robots in the underground concourse of Shinjuku Station, AFP reported. Each stands just over a metre tall and moves at 20 cm per second. Railway Supply reported that the robots are delivery robots from the US company Cartken, that the trial runs on weekdays until 20 November, and that JR East will check safety, crowd behaviour and whether passengers accept them. JR East staff empty the bins in its part of the station more than ten times a day.

A Cartken delivery robot in Kachidoki, Tokyo, in 2024, the type of robot JR East is testing as a mobile bin at Shinjuku. Photo: 迷惘的人生 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

At home, the most direct idea is a bin that takes itself out. Rezzi, a Massachusetts company, developed SmartCan, a pair of motorized wheels that fits a municipal bin and drives it to the curb on a schedule set in an app. Its designers dropped a planned second dock at the curb to meet local rules and keep pavements safe. Another approach is the Lasso Loop, a home recycling machine shown at CES in 2022 that uses sensors and cameras to sort, clean and compact glass, metal and plastics, and hands back items it cannot recycle.

A wheelie bin, recycling crate and rubbish bag put out for collection in Dunedin, New Zealand, 2011. Photo: Lcmortensen / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

ABB does not make household bins. Its robots work further down the waste chain. AI vision systems such as ABB's Robotic Item Picker identify and grab unknown objects from mixed bins in logistics, and similar picking robots sort recyclables in plants, as covered in our post on curbside recycling plants. ABB's Flexley Mover autonomous mobile robots carry loads around factories without fixed tracks, the same basic job a roaming bin does. Using a Flexley Mover to haul waste carts inside a plant is a possibility, not a product ABB sells today.

ABB's Robotic Item Picker uses AI vision to grab unknown items from mixed bins. Photo: ABB

What comes next for the trash can robot

For homes, the next step is probably a combination of the two ideas: a kitchen bin that sorts what goes into it and an outdoor bin that knows when to go to the curb. Cameras and simple robot arms could separate cans from bottles, as the Lasso prototype tried to do. Many cities already ask residents to split waste into several bins, and a machine that did the sorting could cut contamination. The catch is cost: Lasso announced a price of several thousand dollars, far more than a pedal bin.

Bins for sorted plastic bottles and plastic vinyl on a street in Seocho-gu, Seoul, 2019. Photo: Exj / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Safety and rules will decide how far bins can roam. A robot that crosses a pavement meets children, dogs, wheelchairs and parked cars, which is why JR East keeps its bins slow and why SmartCan gave up its curb dock. Driveways covered in snow, gravel or steep slopes are harder than a station floor. Councils would also have to accept bins arriving on their own, and collection trucks with automated arms, described in our post on the garbage truck robot arm, need bins parked in the right place and facing the right way.

The ABB Flexley Mover P604, which navigates with 3D Visual SLAM. Photo: ABB

Factories already use most of the pieces. Mobile robots move bins of parts and scrap between machines, and collaborative arms such as ABB's GoFa CRB 15000 work next to people. Engineers test these cells in simulation before building them, often in RobotStudio. Homes will move more slowly. My guess is that we will see many more bins with sensors and app reminders before a robot bin drives itself down every driveway, and that busy public places such as Shinjuku Station will prove the idea first.

An ABB GoFa CRB 15000 cobot at a work table. Photo: ABB

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