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Trash cans get “smart” at Santa Monica State Beach

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Smartphones have been married with trash cans to create new smart trash cans that made their debut at Santa Monica State Beach on Tuesday.

Wrapped with artwork encouraging beachgoers to put their ‘toes in the sand, trash in the can,’ the cans’ artwork incorporate a QR, or quick response, code that links smartphones with a new Santa Monica Beachcast app. The mobile website provides real-time weather and water quality information, as well as beach cleanup tips. The Beachcast app also lets users upload beach photos to an online gallery in the hopes the images will inspire beachgoers to take better care of the environment.

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‘Our beaches are wild open space, as famous as any national park, and protecting them is one of our highest priorities,’ said Dean Kobani, director of Santa Monica’s Office of Sustainability and the Environment, in a statement released Wednesday.

‘This collaborative effort puts an exciting new twist on the vital public works infrastructure we provide every day to ensure that we ‘keep it out of the sand,’’ he said.

The cans were developed as a partnership between the city of Santa Monica, the nonprofit environmental group Heal the Bay, and advertising firm DDB LA.

Five hundred of the cans were placed on Santa Monica State Beach on Tuesday.

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