Convenient Garbage Collection For Tall Apartment Buildings...

[Omkar™ 0]

Here's a novel idea for garbage collection in congested cities-

 

In congested apartment buildings, there's always a problem of where to put the trash. Well, I've worked out a solution! At the time of construction, a vertical hollow column be inserted such that it passes through each of the kitchens in the building. There may be multiple such columns so that all kitchens are covered in a vertical column. Then, each kitchen would bear an opening to the metal-fortified anti-rust column. From that opening, there would be a movable flat plate placed horizontally, about 2 feet below it. Hence, if there are 6 kitchens vertically one below the other, there would be 6 such plates in the same manner.

 

At the time of collection, an electronic or mechanic switch/lever would move the plates such that they fall vertically to either side and the garbage placed on top of them falls to the bottom automatically. The garbage collector may then take all the garbage out at the same time from an opening at the bottom of the building (the basement).

 

Such a system would ensure convenience to both the residents and the garbage collector, thus eliminating the need for dust-bins!

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Please review the above idea and post your comments or criticism! All duly acknowledged by me!

[austiniskoge 0]

We already had a similar system in my old apartment...I used to live in a high-end apartment complex, and we had a garbage chute in the laundry room. The building had 11 floors (looked like a hotel) and on each floor was a laundry room. There was a little opening in the wall, covered by a door. The door was like the ones at the bank that you put deposit slips into, except it was large enough to fit a garbage bag into. If you opened the door, and put your garbage through the hole, it fell down the chute- to the bottom, I guess.What you are proposing is a good improvement on that idea, but there is one problem. It will stink like nobody's business. Even if you have the plates to close it up, the smell will still be there. And a deodorizer won't work, who wants aerosols constantly going around in their kitchen?Anybody have ideas?

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Yea some buildings have similar things, like austin mentioned, where its just a chute on each floor or whatever. Having access to it from every apartment would be good but no mnatter what smell would indeed be an issue. Even if the garbage immediately went to the bottom there would be odours lofting upward toward the apartments above. They could hypothetically have some type of air current to remove the odours but that wouldn't be economically feasible for such a small gain.

[cyborgxxi 0]

One suggestion would be that you put all the kitchens in a room which the wall is the one towards the outside not just another room. Then when you put the chute down you have your watchamacallits that blow the smell out facing outwards to allow the smell outside to disipate. Unfortunately this would stink up whatever alley or street this wall faced. I don't see why we can't put it all in trash cans and then take it outside. A little extra effort for a better, cleaner apartment building? Just my humble opinion

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

People in my building have let their garbage stink up their own apartments so bad the halls outside their doors smelled too :| Some people are just disgusting haha. And comming from me thats pretty bad since ym roomate is a complete slob, but as far are smells are soncerned I mean, how can you put up with it when you just need to take a bag of garbage downstairs? lol. So yes, for some people anything more convenient would be to the betterment of their roomates/neighbours.

[illini319 0]

Well the interesting thing about the idea is that it is the logical extension of the trash chute; instead of ending up in a trashbin at an alley, trash continues below the ground into some conveyor system of centralizing trash. Of course what about blockages.... And repairs... and the smell! Some of the infrastructure already exists, at least in large cities. The sewer system may be able to accomodate a conveyor system.

[Pharoah 0]

Yeah I think I saw a show about this. There is a machine at the bottom of many of them which immediately compacts the trash and moves it to a smell-sealed container. I think if you put it in the rooms, though, the murder rate might increase because it would be so easy to push someone in. :Djust kidding

[webintern 0]

This derivative of the trash chute is an interesting idea, but I agree with the others that the odor (especially of decomposing food substances) would overpower all the kitchens. Where I used to live, they solved this problem by placing the chute bins in a small well-ventilated room on each floor. The rooms serve no other purpose than to contain the smell that rose from the trash compactor in the basement. And since this room was in a "public" area, the residents of the condominium complex did not have to clean it.

[seec77 0]

About the sewage conveyor belt thing... Am I the only one that can imagine it being used in a scene for Robots 2?

Or maybe this... James Bond is on the conveyor belt, tied up, almost at the garbage disposal machine, when he suddenly cuts himself loose and kills the bad guys! Woohoo!

 

I just noticed how I'm adding no worthy contribution to this conversation... Sorry! But yeah, I agree: taking the trash out is just not that big of a hassle!

[evought 0]

Was I the only one who saw this topic and immediately thought *programming* languages and garbage collection?I lived in a building in DC that had garbage chutes. They were in a centralized room on each floor. You dropped the trash in and could immediately hear the compactor disposing of it below. It saved having people carrying trash all over and through the lobby and such. The rooms on each floor also became the point where all kinds of junk was deposited in the hopes that someone else wanted them: couches, ugly lamps, etc. [And yes, I several times thought of how convenient the chutes would be for dealing with unwelcome guests... "Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die..."]A system like that is absolutely necessary in many high-rises for dealing with vermin. You cannot let trash collect anywhere in the living areas of the building without paying the price. Push residents towards emptying early and often makes sanitation easier across the board. Couple that with garbage disposals in the sinks and you have very little build up of organic wastes that would attract vermin.I once read a book talking about the buildup in the former Soviet Union that the maximum population of any city could be readily calculated by looking at its waste disposal system. If a city does not have the capacity to get rid of garbage efficientyl, its growth is strictly capped by disease and so forth. This process was used to show that Moscow, for instance, probably had less than a quarter the people it was claimed to have had at its height. When you think about our current population growth, I think that garbage and where it goes is going to get awfully important real soon.The place we just moved into here, the last tennants did not take care of. In particular, they did not believe in trash service and crammed their empties in the basement, the shed, etc. The landlord has been steadily cleaning and repairing things here, but it has been much harder for us to deal with pests. Two cats makes short work of anything getting inside, but with a steady supply of them outside ... Anyway, I hate having things in my kitchen that don't belong there.