Sucking Waste Out of Sight, Out of Mind
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 12.23.08
Here is an infrastructure investment America should consider: an Envac waste disposal system. Instead of filling our streets with garbage bags and waiting for trucks to pick them up, many European cities (they invest in infrastructure that isn't for cars there) are trying out these clever underground vacuum systems. Garbage is separated into "fractions"- paper, organics, or other garbage, deposited in chutes where it is held until a computer opens the gate at the bottom of the tube and sucks a particular fraction down the pipe to a processing center. The result? "...A drastic reduction of road transportation of waste, improved hygiene and enhanced occupational health and safety standards." And better looking and smelling cities.
They start their pitch with a photo of a fancy part of New York with garbage piled high and a caption "this is the way we treat our streets today";
and then show how in Europe, where an Envac system is installed, the streets are clean.
Such systems aren't cheap. They are also not without certain contradictions, when we want people to reduce waste; it is so easy and tidy to make it just disappear like this that people might care less about how much they toss.
But in much of North America they have not even buried the electrical and telephone wiring, complaining of the cost. Perhaps some of that infrastructure money sloshing about should go to rebuilding the backbones of our cities, installing separated sewers, underground communications and power and sophisticated systems to handle our waste. That would be a legacy. Envac via thegreenworkplace
More on Garbage and Cities in TreeHugger:
'Ciudad Saludable' Garbage Managing Projects
The Garbage Game
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Prepostersous. There's not enough employment now and you want to invest money to automate the jobs of garbage workers? Street refuse is about the tiniest public health hazard in existence. Instead put the money into more pickups. More employment, cleaner streets!
Interesting idea. It'd be a tremendous undertaking in many of North Americas cities though I'm sure. Also exactly what is the "range" of these systems? Surely they'd require many vacuum stations or collection points spread through the city. I don't care how well everything seals there's still going to be a leak in a vacuum system somewhere resulting in less pressure. Less pressure = less pull. Less pull = less range. So do we need to setup something like this per city block? If so where exactly should these be put? North American cities aren't known for their spaciousness.
We have one of these systems (AVAC) in NYC/Manhattan, on Roosevelt Island. It doesn't go as far as separating trash, but does suck it all to a central processing area, keeping our streets clean, without rats, without odor and without noisy garbage trucks.
It's one of two systems installed in the US. The other is at Disney World. They were able to install it here because the island was (re)developed essentially from scratch for residential use in the 1970s.
Roy: These systems have a huge and complex infrastructure that needs maintaining. The people who do the maintenance will be better trained and more highly paid. Also, garbage collection will still be needed for suburban communities.
Also, cars put stable keepers out of work.
Cities will only adopt this system if it is more cost effect. The fuel, wages, and truck maintenance we currently have is fairly expensive, and the difference between the two will either mean less taxes (yeah right) or money reinvested in other areas of government. Either way, it opens up new jobs in other sectors.
I always thought they should do that for mail too. Why have all these trucks drive around when you can suck it around underground???
Wow! This seems like a great idea- at least for more densely populated East Coast cities- especially those tiny alley streets in Philly or New York that weren't built for cars (like all of them!). But I wonder if Americans will ever get used to separating their garbage at least to the extent they do it here in Japan- one bag for non-burnables, one for burnables, one for recycling #1 plastics, one for glass, etc.
It would be a total fantasy if something like this could happen in the United States! But yeah, we have bigger fish to fry... As a Philadelphian, I'd like to see a lot of things get better before we worry about our trash.
It seems to me like this is one of those "just take it away. I dont want to see it solutions." Like sewers. They don't reduce pollution or waste they just mask it so we don't feel so bad about it.
good point about the comm and power lines being above ground due to "cost."
one of the things people here in Connecticut like so much about the suburbs is that all the electricity and communication cables are beneath the street. Just houses, lawns and kids playing!
I live in a city where a car can crash into a utility pole and knock out electricity to thousands.
I don't think that automating a garbage "straw" system in a city is very cost-effective. Instead of curbside pickup (which occurs weekly here, and is handled by dumpster-load, not individual cans), a centralized system would have receptacles every 50-100 feet for the urban density we have now. Instead of (or in addition to) overhead power lines, we'll have clusters of foul-smelling, power-hungry portals up and down every street. This seems too far-fetched to be a good idea.