The Swedish city of Malmo attracted attention recently when it re-programmed two of its talking garbage cans to make users blush. Learn more about the sexy trash cans in Sweden.
The dirty talking trash cans in Malmö are encouraging citizens to throw their garbage correctly. Pedestrians that drop trash into one of two bins on the city’s Davidshallsbron bridge are rewarded with extremely positive feedback from a sultry female voice, who offers a range of responses.

Five years ago, when the eco-conscious city bought 18 speech-enabled cans, some of the trash cans uttered a family-friendly retort when users dropped something in them. (During covid, some even reminded people to follow social distancing guidelines.)
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What are the two trash cans really saying? They have been programmed to respond to users with seductive audio messages like ‘Aaah that was really good’, ‘come back soon and do it again’ and “Mmm, a bit more to the left next time”.
The first 18 trash cans featured a male voice thanking people for disposing their garbage and barking out no-nonsense messages from the public bins. The two new ones, however, represent the sound of seduction.
“The sentences are part of the campaign’s intention to get more people to talk about the dirtiest thing there is: littering,” said Marie Persson, according the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan. The goal is to find “a humorous way to get across our message” and offer “a positive reinforcement to people who do the right thing, by giving them a laugh.”

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Malmö has long been renowned as a pioneer in eco-friendly living, so its latest innovation should perhaps come as no surprise. In February, Södertälje, a city not too far from Stockholm, announced that it was using the services of a company that trained crows to pick up cigarette butts they see on the street, and deposit them in a machine.
This is what we would call a trashy campaign!
Sexy Trash Cans in Sweden, written by Tor Kjolberg
Feature image (on top) : © Steve Johnson / Unsplash