Where BMW and trash bins intersect

CNET's new gadgets blog Crave covers the hottest and coolest gizmos around. Among the latest items of note: the BMW of kitchen trash cans.

For details on the high-tech waste system, click here for the full Crave effect, or read below. Other recent postings include the glamorous designer washing machine and the uncertain future of the click wheel.

It's one of our least favorite weekly rituals: Carting the recycling crates to the curb, with cans falling off and paper blowing down the street. We could use one of those built-in trash compactors, but we've never been the same since reading about some guy who got his head stuck in one. (Story for another time.)

But this is different, and we want one. The Ecopod automated recycling bin is like a cross between a trash compactor and a BMW. In fact, according to Treehugger, it was created with the help of DesignworksUSA, which designed the BMW X5.

And unlike the trash compactors from hell in our nightmares, the Ecopod's version looks more like a regular waste bin--so we don't think a normal-sized head could reach the crushing mechanism, no matter how many beers have been consumed.