Giant rabbits are shortly set to take-over the capital. But these 5ft high creatures with flashing ears, are not some genetically engineered monster-bunny, but instead the work of fashion designer Paul Smith as he tries to tackle London’s litter louts.

The bunny-bins whose ears light up when rubbish is put in them, are one of several ideas on display at the London’s Design Museum, and a couple of the bins have already been tested in Covent Garden and Holland Park.

Bins in London (similar to this one seen in Bristol) could soon be replaced by grey rabbit bins with flashing ears. Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Paul Smith isn’t the first celebrity to jump on the cleaning bandwagon – in 2007 Bill Bryson became the new president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England – the same year in which a survey revealed that a shocking 50% of people admit to dropping litter. Back in April this year, campaigners dropped bags of litter in Trafalgar Square to highlight the plight of the capital.

London can seem pretty grotty at times – in fact the equivalent of 100,000 dustbin bags of rubbish are discarded on London streets ever day. The city produces 3.4million tonnes of rubbish a year – enough waste to fill Canary Wharf tower every eight days or to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every hour. Although the recession might be making us more cautious about leftovers, the problem of rubbish is getting worse as we purchase more packaged items and disposable goods. With predictions that by 2016 there will be 700,000 more people living in London the problem with both littering and disposal of rubbish is something that needs considering.

Recongnised universally as the symbol for throwing rubbish in the bins provided. Image courtesy of Wikipedia

At present, most of London’s rubbish is either burnt or buried in landfill sites, with as much as 70% exported out to the Home Counties or beyond due to a lack of required space within the city. However, the rate at which Londoners are recycling is slowly improving, although at present it falls well below the theoretical maximum. It’s estimated that as much as 60% of what we throw away can be recycled, but at present London’s only recycle just over 25% (still a dramatic increase from the 8% in 2000). However, in Harringey, north London the local council are pleased with their 20% recycling rate although they told ‘The Independent’ that as many as 50% of their residents don’t recycle.

A tiny fraction of everything London produces goes to the Grosvenor Waste Management’s plant at Crayford, south-east London, where they attempt to sort through the truck loads of mixed up recycling that arrives. Using conveyor belts, magnets, air jets and photo-recognition equipment they separate the aluminium, tin, paper and plastic products, whilst employees check the final conveyor belts by hand. However, the sudden surge in recycling has itself led to problems – the UK is currently struggling to reprocess much of the waste. So instead 4 million tons of UK industrial, commercial and household waste gets exported overseas to India, China and south-east Asia. Ships that arrive at UK ports with Far Eastern imports return filled with the UK’s waste, which places like China are desperate for.

So are flashing bins the answer? Well, it actually seems that Paul Smith’s bunny idea isn’t the first new style bin to hit London. In 2008, it was announced that new superbins would be hitting the financial district of London this year. They claim to not only recycle, but also to report the latest news and information as well as being bombproof thanks to their ‘blast intelligent technology’. With the 2012 Olympics looming, when London will be on display to the world, the city is getting desperate. So we’ll just have to hope that the endearing animal-bins will encourage more people to ‘dunk their junk’.