It’s Going Down in Cities: Removing Trash Through Underground Pneumatic Tubes
What do New York, London, Beijing, Mecca, Madrid, Seoul, Singapore, and Stockholm all have in common with Disney World? They have certain places that smell far better than others. I’m not referring to green parks, fancy indoor malls, or upscale hotel lobbies. This is about residential neighborhoods that are more livable and streets that are more linger-able precisely because they are bereft of the pungent stench of garbage.
How do some neighborhoods avoid overflowing trash cans and garbage spilling onto sidewalks, which is both an assault on the nostrils and an aesthetic abomination?
What Disney World and these global cities, and 24 additional cities in Spain, and many others across the globe have in common is this:
Touchless, automated garbage collection systems below ground.
Snapshot
- Automated underground trash collection systems use pneumatic tubes to whisk away trash and are spreading to cities around the world.
- By eliminating on-street trash pickup, city dwellers experience fresher air, cleaner streets, quieter neighborhoods, and reduced traffic congestion.
- Invented in the 1950s by Swedish company Envac, these systems reduce carbon emissions by up to 90% compared to common trash collection.
- Bergen, Norway shows how the economics of automated underground systems can improve a city’s bottom line; the city now saves $2 million annually in trash collection.
Automated Waste Collection Systems
They have miles of underground pneumatics tubes sending trash dropped from the streets above at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour to centralized collection stations on the area’s outskirts where garbage is hauled away by trucks to, depending on the city, the recycling center, the biogas furnace to be turned into energy, the composting facility, the incinerator, or the landfill.
Instead of throwing their trash into classic garbage bins, residents of these cities and Mickey Mouse in Orlando toss disposables into portals or chutes that look much like trash cans, only sleeker and more modern. Trash is then held in the storage chute until a sensor signals that its full and sends a signal to the central collection station to initiate emptying. Transport air then fills the pneumatic tubes below and whoosh! It’s gone,
This technology goes by many names. It’s called an Automated Vacuum Waste Collection System, a Pneumatic Garbage Collection System, and an Automated Vacuum Collection (AVAC), among others and was invented over a half-century ago in Sweden, of course.
Leave it to the Swedes to develop a clean economy technology that reduces noise pollution, eliminates odors, keeps streets clean and unclogged, and enhances overall quality of life for city dwellers.
What’s with these guys? Why are they so obsessed with design and making life better?
According to Envac, the Swedish company that invented the technology in the 1950s, its vacuum waste collection systems also reduce carbon emissions by up to 90% compared to the standard trash removal infrastructure the rest of us just have to hold our noses and deal with. That’s because typical heavy-duty garbage trucks run on diesel and average just 3 miles per gallon, generating 20 times more greehouse gass emissions annually than the average-sized American home.
Above: See how the Envac automated waste collection system works.
Cities are Adopting this Climate Solution to Garbage
The great news is that these systems are now spreading rapidly around the globe. In 2023, the world’s largest pneumatic garbage collection system began operations in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. There, trash is collected from over 400 points around the city, including the 400,000-square-meter mosque area, and whisked away through a network of pipes 25 miles long. 2.5 million pilgrims to the holy city generate about 600 tons of trash every day, which the system is equipped to handle. The Finnish company MariMatic built it.
The 24 cities in Spain that have Envac systems provide service to over 800,000 residents. The systems cut carbon emissions by about 5,000 tons annually by eliminating the need for garbage trucks to rove the city streets, collecting trash from individual bins. No diesel. No fumes. Sending the trucks to collect waste from one centralized point is far more efficient.
Automatic underground waste collection systems are electric and increasingly energy efficient but still require substantial energy to run the fans that create the vacuum suction that propels trash through the pipes. Much of that energy in Spain comes from local solar panels installed at the waste facilities.
Above: Solar power on the roof of a Madrid waste collection and transport facility.
When Wembley Park, an 85-acre district surrounding Wembley Stadium in London, underwent a revitalization plan in 2008, the project leaders contracted Envac to install an underground automated waste collection system. These days, the 25,000 residents, hotel guests, and office workers rarely see a garbage truck. Wembley Park also has a recycling rate that is four times the U.K. average.
A report prepared for Brent Council, the local authority of the London borough of Brent where Wembley Park is located, found that the economics are favorable. Installing an Envac automated waste collection system cost $16 million upfront. Yet, authorities now realize savings of over $600,000 annually compared to operating a standard trash hauling system ($275,000 for the Envac system compared to $900,000 for curbside collection).
In Bergen, Norway, the city has fully embraced automatic underground waste collection, saving the municipality $2 million annually on trash collection. Plastic waste recycling is up 29%, and non-recyclable waste is down 8%. Why? Because the city’s “pay as you throw” plan lets you discard as much recycling and compost as you like. However, every resident gets an RFID key fob, which must be tapped to open a garbage chute. Residents gets five free tosses per month of non-recyclable trash. After that, it costs 85 cents for each additional load. Residents can track their trashy behavior, er, see how much they’re saving or paying using the city’s app.
Above: Disposing of trash in Bergen using automated vacuum waste collection.
In the U.S., Disney World installed the first underground automated waste collection system in 1971 when it opened its theme park in Orlando. In the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn, Roosevelt Island installed a system in 1975 for its 14,00 residents as an instrumental component of architect Philip Johnson’s vision for a futuristic city.
Today, that futuristic vision is increasingly going down in Supercool neighborhoods around the world. The technology is straightforward to implement for new development. Stockholm has pneumatic trash collection systems in over 120 neighborhoods, serving about 20% of the population, and plans to add the service to every new development for over 1,000 residents.
Vacuum collection systems are trickier to implement for more established parts of a city because the infrastructure must go below ground. But Bergen is installing its system throughout the city, including its medieval city center.
In the U.S., the Polo Ground Towers, a large public housing apartment complex serving over 4,000 residents on the northern edge of Manhattan, where the famed Polo Grounds baseball stadium once stood, will complete and commence operations next year of the first major system to be built in America in this century.
In short, the hurdles are surmountable, and many cities are interested because pneumatic waste collection systems are a climate solution that improves modern life.
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