Some individuals delight (often as a drunken prank) in lighting fires in street litter bins.

When the bin is plastic, and fixed to a lamp post, it can sometimes cause the bin to be destroyed.

BorgCo have now developed an autoquenching lamp post.

On top of the luminaire is a rain-collecting cone which feeds down into a long vertical tank located in the upper part of the post.

The open-topped bin is mounted on the post 1.5m above street level. 2.5m above that is a downward pointing nozzle in the side of the post.

Each evening, when the street lamp comes on, the valve is opened and a couple of litres of water are sprayed into the bin, wetting the contents and making them incombustible.

If it's rained that day, the level in the reservoir will have risen, so no water is dispensed.
-- 8th of 7, Mar 07 2010

//just whag it// quite
-- pocmloc, Mar 08 2010


Showers for the poor. [+]
-- Aristotle, Mar 08 2010


// enjoy putting out fires ... even when there’s no fire //

Very Zen, [IT].
-- 8th of 7, Mar 08 2010


It'd be heavy for the trash men to pick up if it was filled with water every night. Why not sense the fire starting and put it out. You might even deter the fires at all by spraying the arson.
-- crazyrog17, Mar 08 2010


Seems eminently sensible to me +
-- xenzag, Mar 08 2010


Wouldn't it make more sense to open the valve in response to a thermal infrared sensor, capable of detecting a fire?
-- goldbb, Mar 08 2010


The main problem I envisage is of the contents of the bin rotting rather obscenely until it's emptied and the cycle begins anew.

If it's a hot day, I'd think a bin containing mostly, say, newspaper, could dry fairly fast anyway.
-- dbmag9, Mar 11 2010


Then you've never been around a pile of rotting soybeans as they putrify. Worst stench known to this man and takes a very long time to dry, even in direct sun, due to their R-value.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 13 2010



random, halfbakery