The two talking bins on Malmö’s Davidshallsbron, first reported by Sydsvenskan newspaper, hit headlines last week after The Local broke the story in English.
The bins express arousal when fed rubbish, with phrases like, “hmmm, yeah”, “that was crazy good”, and “just to the left”.
Now, those using the bins have a 50/50 chance of hearing a female or male voice after throwing away their rubbish.
Malmö City Council are keeping the identity of the male voice under wraps for now, but have said that they will announce it soon.
“We’ve added a male voice to them, so now it’s 50/50,” Clara Kirandonis Persson, sanitation coordinator at the Malmö council office responsible for estates and roads, told Sydsvenskan. “But it’s someone from Skåne.”
In the past few days, Malmö-ites have been queuing up to throw rubbish in the bins, which are located just south of the Gustav Adolf Square in the centre of the city.
Although there are 18 of the bins in the city, only two of them talk. During the Covid-19 pandemic, they thanked users for keeping their distance, with the new voices appearing in June 2022.
Malmö City Council originally refused to divulge the identity behind the bins’ feminine voice, until Swedish rapper Joy shared the news in an Instagram story.
“Congrats to everyone living in Malmö,” she wrote. “Now you can hear me groan while you look after the environment!”
I even heard about this just this morning on Zoe Ball’s breakfast show on BBC Radio 2