https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/jonkoping/mystiska-tralador-vacker-fragor-i-jonkoping
Around 15 locked wooden boxes have been set up in central Jönköping. Despite a bomb scare on Monday morning, the boxes are completely harmless. They collect data on how the people of Jönköping move.
The organisation Keep Sweden Tidy is running a pilot project in three Swedish cities right now: Jönköping, Uppsala and Borås.
“What these cities have in common is that they also have smart bins called Big Belly that collect data on how often and how much is thrown away,” says Stefan Hållberg at Keep Sweden Tidy.
Picks up mobile signals
The boxes set up in Jönköping contain a type of router that picks up the Wi-Fi signals from mobile users moving around the area. The purpose of the project, which was initiated by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, is to try to find out whether the city’s bins are in the right places and whether there are enough of them for the number of people moving there.
“The most common reasons people give when they have thrown litter on the ground are that there was no bin or that the one there was overfull.”
The boxes will be up collecting information for a week.
What do you hope this project will deliver?
“Together with interviews and surveys, we hope the data we collect will give us a good basis for explaining how, in an ideal case, you should design infrastructure for collecting waste,” says Stefan Hållberg.
Caused an alarm outside the Administrative Court of Appeal
On Monday morning, however, the box outside the Administrative Court of Appeal caused a response when someone suspected it could be a bomb. The misunderstanding was quickly cleared up, since the boxes are marked with a phone number and what they are for.
“It can look a bit suspicious, but I can guarantee there is no bomb in the boxes.”
Written by Jonas Tubbin.