Don't get me wrong, I'm all for recycling, but it's the process I'm not so thrilled about. For bottles and newspapers things are fairly simple, but there is a whole gray area that makes knowing what is appropriate for recycling more complicated. The Barcode Trashcan offers a high-tech solution that utilizes the product barcode to help sort and separate items.


Many recyclables feature a number value that denotes whether it can or can not be recycled. When scanned, these bins read that number and the corresponding can opens for your convenience. Unfortunately, the only real benefit I see in this concept is that I would spend less time thinking about which bin to throw my beer bottles into. The real tough recycling questions generally don't have a barcode slapped on the side. So, it appears that I will have to continue utilizing the woods and trash dump runs under the cover of darkness to deal with those issues. [Yanko Design]