October 2026 — TOMROBOTS, Guangzhou
This week, TOMROBOTS welcomed a delegation of clients from France to our facility in Guangzhou. The visit had a clear focus: the Solar Bin, our solar-powered waste compacting solution. The delegation is evaluating solar compacting bins for waste collection in their market, and they arrived with a long list of practical questions.
This post summarizes what the visit covered. We are sharing it for two reasons: for anyone in the waste management industry who is evaluating solar bins, and for anyone curious about how a client visit at TOMROBOTS actually works.
Why solar bins are drawing attention
The interest from France is not difficult to understand. Waste collection is one of the largest operational costs for cities, and collection frequency is the main driver. A conventional public bin often needs emptying once or several times a day, and every trip costs fuel, labour, and vehicle time.
A solar bin addresses this from two directions. First, it compacts waste on site, so a bin holds several times more waste than a standard container of the same footprint. Second, it reports its fill level in real time, so collection routes can be based on actual data instead of a fixed schedule. Together, these two functions can reduce the number of collection trips — and the actual savings depend on the site, the waste volume, and the current collection pattern.
We were careful with numbers in the conversation with our guests, and we will be equally careful here. A solar bin is not the right answer for every location. In low-traffic areas where a bin is already emptied rarely, the payback period can be long. In high-traffic locations where bins are emptied once a day or more, the case is much stronger. The right way to evaluate the technology is site by site, with real data.
A day of demonstrations and discussion
The delegation spent a full day at our facility. The morning was devoted to the production floor and quality control; the afternoon to live demonstrations and technical discussion.
On the production floor, the guests followed the assembly of the Solar Bin from the steel body through the installation of the solar panel, the battery compartment, the compaction mechanism, and the electronics. They looked closely at the sealing of the electrical compartments, the choice of materials, and the testing steps every unit goes through before shipment. For a market like France, where equipment must perform reliably outdoors for years, this behind-the-scenes look was as important as the product itself.
The live demonstration showed the full operating cycle: waste loaded into the bin, the compaction mechanism pressing it down, the fill-level reading updating on the dashboard, and the status report transmitted to the monitoring platform. The guests also inspected the solar power system and the battery housing up close, and spent time questioning our engineers on the details.
The main topics of the technical exchange
The discussion covered most of the areas that matter when a city or a company evaluates compacting bins. What follows is a summary of the themes and the substance of what was discussed.
How the Solar Bin works
The Solar Bin is a waste container with four added elements: a solar panel, a battery, an electric compaction mechanism, and sensors with a communication module. During daylight, the panel charges the battery. The battery powers the compactor, which presses waste down when the fill level reaches a preset threshold. Sensors measure how full the bin is, and the communication module sends this data to a cloud platform.
Because the bin does not need a wired power supply, it can be deployed in locations where running a cable is impractical or expensive: parks, plazas, waterfronts, and historic centres where new wiring is not an option.
Energy and weather performance
The delegation asked how the bin behaves in European weather, and the question was fair: France has varied climates, and winter daylight is short in many regions. We explained the design choices behind the system. The solar panel is sized to cover the bin's typical energy use with a margin, and the battery stores enough energy to keep the bin operating through several consecutive days of poor weather. The system also has power-saving modes that reduce non-essential functions when the battery is low.
In practice, the limiting factor is usually not the number of sunny days but how the bin is configured and how much waste it receives. We also discussed how lithium iron phosphate batteries perform at low temperatures and the charging management built into the system — a topic that matters in any market with cold winters.
Battery and electrical safety
Battery safety in public spaces was a major theme. We described the design in some detail:
● The battery chemistry is lithium iron phosphate, which is more thermally stable than several other lithium chemistries.
● A battery management system continuously monitors voltage, temperature, and charge state, and disconnects the system if any value goes outside the safe range.
● The electrical compartments are sealed against moisture and dust, and the design ensures that members of the public never come into contact with live parts.
● Units are built and tested to CE requirements, and battery transport follows UN38.3 regulations, with the relevant documentation included with each shipment.
We did not claim that any battery system is risk-free, and we said so plainly. What we offered was transparency about the chemistry, the protections, and the testing.
Fill-level sensing and IoT management
Fill-level accuracy is where many smart bins fall short, and the delegation asked how the Solar Bin measures fill level. We walked through the combination of sensors used: the system combines multiple detection methods so that operators receive reliable readings rather than estimates. The monitoring platform shows fill level, battery status, and system health for every bin on a single dashboard, and operators can set alerts for bins that need emptying or units that report faults.
For a fleet of dozens or hundreds of bins, this centralized view is what makes the hardware manageable. Collection routes can be adjusted on the basis of real data, and problems can often be diagnosed remotely before a technician is sent to the site.
Compaction and capacity
The practical questions were about how much waste the bin actually holds. The compaction ratio depends on the waste type and how it is loaded; for typical mixed waste, ratios in the range of 5:1 are common. The bin's effective capacity is therefore several times its nominal volume. We were careful to explain that compaction works best for compressible waste, and that some waste streams — and some locations — are better served by conventional bins.
Maintenance and running costs
With moving parts and electronics on board, maintenance is a natural concern. We explained the modular design of the key components, the access points for servicing, and the remote diagnostics available through the platform. The battery is designed for a service life of many years, and replacement is a scheduled maintenance step rather than a frequent one.
On costs, we kept the discussion grounded. A solar bin costs more to buy than a conventional bin. The question is whether the savings from fewer collection trips cover the difference — and that depends on the site. We shared the calculation logic with the delegation and offered to run a site-specific estimate once pilot locations are confirmed.
Compliance and documentation
For the European market, documentation matters as much as hardware. We listed the key items: CE certification for the electrical system, the ingress protection rating of the enclosure, user and maintenance manuals, and the battery transport documentation required for shipping. We also confirmed that technical support and documentation can be provided in English, and that we can coordinate with the client's own certification or testing needs on a case-by-case basis.
Customization
Finally, we discussed how the bin can be adapted to a city's requirements: colour and branding, signage, aperture design, and configuration options for different waste streams. These details matter because a deployment that blends into its surroundings is far easier for municipalities to approve.
The questions the delegation brought
The delegation's questions were practical and well prepared. In summary, the main themes were: performance in cold and overcast weather, battery safety in public spaces, maintenance requirements over the bin's lifetime, integration with existing collection routes and vehicles, total cost of ownership, certification and documentation for the European market, and customization to fit local streetscape requirements. These are the right questions to ask, and we answered each one as directly as we could.
What comes next
The visit ended with both sides having a clearer picture of what a partnership could look like. The delegation left with the technical documentation they requested and a set of samples for evaluation. The next steps are: evaluation of the samples under local conditions, a site-specific cost estimate based on their pilot locations, clarification of any remaining certification questions, and discussion of customization details.
To our French guests: thank you for a productive day. The questions you brought were exactly the kind that move a product forward, and we look forward to continuing the discussion as the project develops.
If you are evaluating solar bins for your own city or business, we would welcome the same conversation. Contact the TOMROBOTS team — we are happy to share the technical details, the honest limits, and the numbers behind the product.
