BABCOCK RANCH, FLA. — Thursday’s garbage pickup might look a little different for some neighbors in Babcock Ranch as some neighbors will see robots taking out their garbage for them.
Did you ever think you’d see the day where robots are taking out your garbage?
FOX 4 Elyse Chengery got a first hand look at how the new technology works…the robot takes the garbage to the curb and returns it to the garage when done.
Anthony Marinacci is a Operations Manager explains, “This will make a lot of difference because it’s going to be convenient for the residents they won’t have to worry about ever missing their trash and it’ll be convenient for us from an operational standpoint because we won’t ever have to worry about missed pick ups.”
The new pilot program officially rolls out November 18th starting with 5 houses… then another 5 houses on January 1st and another 10 in March of 2022.
James Aronson who's the CEO and Co-founder of Rezzi explains futher, "We’ve been working on this for about the last four years. Right now we don’t have a price on the market we’re looking at a subscription-based model."
Over the course of the pilot - the Rezzi team will be the primary installers and handlers however they say in the future homeowners will be able to pair their cellphones to the robots.
And when it comes to weight and weather…
"We’ve ball parked this to be in the 200/300 pound range and we’re really looking at the upper ranges. This isn’t perfect testing but I’ve actually riden around one of these them 220 pounds. As far as wind goes there’s a difference between an empty barrel once it’s been dropped off and emptied verse once we have that robot attached it actually moves that sense of gravity significantly lower and because we’re retrieving it after it’s been emptied it’s only going to be on the curb for a small period of time," says Aronson.
And now you may ask will this take any jobs away? The answer...
"No, because we’re a brand new company we actually started this company to service the Babcock Ranch residents so we’ve just grown to the point where we only hire one person and the automated system is designed to keep the cost down by not having as many personnel and putting them at risk of injury so at this point it has not cost any jobs," Marinacci.
So what does this mean for the future of Babcock Ranch residents?
Syd Kitson, the Chairman & CEO of Kitson & Partners tells FOX 4 Elyse Chengery.
"Babcock Ranch we are focused on innovation it’s a big part of what we do here not only as the most sustainable new community I think that’s ever been built for solar town in the country but we are all about innovation so here we have a small company that has a great idea and we want them to come out here and give it a try and see how it performs and that’s what we are a living laboratory, an opportunity for people to come out try their idea, volunteers who want to give it a try and that’s how you learn. You learn by doing so these young entrepreneurs for something like smart can and what the residents are doing. It’s the exact kind of thing we want to encourage here at Babcock Ranch. I think first it’s testing at making sure it works and then getting all the kinks out and I think at that point Rezzi themselves will determine what the value of proposition is for people. I think it’s just the beginning, so this is one part of what autonomous transportation could be. Do you know what people think of autonomous vehicles...as an example of transforming the way that we travel from point a to point. That’s one thing but then there’s this whole other part to autonomy it’s autonomous trash cans, delivery of goods and services to your home through autonomous vehicles so I think what it means is it’s the start of something very very exciting and the more that we introduce these types of innovations because you can see what’s going on around us throughout the world certainly over the last couple of years we’ve been almost forced into thinking about innovation and technology and I think people are liking it,” Kitson.
