October 8, 2020
Imagine it: “Residents walk their trash to a set of chutes, which may be built into their apartment buildings or on the street near their doors. Food waste goes down one chute, destined for a facility that turns it into biofuel. Recyclables go down another. And the third is for mixed waste that’ll wind up in an incinerator.” Then, a trap door opens and sucks the trash bags through pneumatic tubes at speeds up to 60 miles per hour until they reach the waiting bed of a garbage truck no more than 1.2 miles away.
This is a reality in Stockholm, Sweden, where Envac, a company that has offered pneumatic trash systems for decades, serves roughly 20% of the city with its tubes. And it is becoming a reality in 44 other cities as well—from Seoul to Barcelona—where Envac systems are the “default infrastructure for new developments.”
“Our vision is that underground waste collection will become a natural part of the city’s infrastructure—as natural as water, sewage, and electricity,” notes Envac CEO Joakim Karlsson. But, vacuum waste systems do not come cheap. The city of Bergen, Norway is currently installing Envac pipes to serve every home and business in town, including the medieval city center—and “expects to shell out $140 million by the time the city is done installing pipes in 2023.”
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