
How New York's Roosevelt Island Sucks Away Summer Trash Stink - transcranial
http://www.npr.org/2017/07/26/539304811/how-new-york-s-roosevelt-island-sucks-away-summer-trash-stink
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asah
If you've never lived in NYC, you have no idea... just say the words "summer
garbage strike" to any NYer and they'll have stories of 10-high bags of
garbage piling up on streets in 95 degree heat and 95% humidity, while the
unions wait until city hall caves...

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yardie
Honestly, can you blame them. It's toxic, backbreaking work. Easily dismissed
and essential at the same time. Trash collection is the number 1 contributor
to public health.

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pkaye
I guess it cant be done in dense cities but in our area, the garbage
collectors drive trucks with robot arms. They can stay in the cab the whole
time and the machine does the work in a fraction of the time and workers
involved. The catch is that the homeowner needs to pull their cart to the
street curb but personally that is not a big deal. One good point is because
the machine lifts the cart, I can fill them up quite heavy and they not
complain.

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dionidium
There are no carts in New York City. The trash is piled up in bags at the
curb. It can be quite a sight.

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skrebbel
You make it sound like that's a law of nature.

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cmurf
In NYC there are all kinds of violations of normalcy and sanity, that become,
"well how the f else is gonna work?" It is after all, the center of the known
universe.

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farance
I've lived on Roosevelt Island for the past 37 years and the AVAC system has
been very reliable, and no garbage trucks. The system works with a set of
"timed" openings and several score of chutes, so the full vacuum pressure is
maintained for a single chute, then it closes, and moves onto the next chute.
The system timing can be adjusted to meet varying demands. Some of us are
looking for possibilities of, say, 3-headed attachments at the chute base,
which would allow separation into various recyclables to be automated
sorted/collected. Annual cost is about $360K, which is about $30 per person
per year (or $3/month). And the system collects and containerizes the garbage
so only one carting truck is needed to pick up a full container, rather than
carting trucks half loaded, i.e., better truck, fuel, exhaust efficiency. It's
one of those "Jetsons" ideas that actually works well. I'm working with
politicians to get mini-AVAC systems in areas of Manhattan (high rises), but
you can imagine that there are regulatory obstacles and union/industry
obstacles, but it really works well.

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bvttf
So in summary, the garbage collection is not something that you just dump
something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't
understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put
your [trash] in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that
puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of
material.

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maxaf
+1 (insightful) for an apt application of the universal explanation of
everything.

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jfries
I live in Sweden and have a similar system in my apartment building. It's
really the height of convenience.

To throw household trash I just open the door and throw it down the hatch
placed in the wall. See
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/184p0ten0kzjvz9/20170806_150718.jp...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/184p0ten0kzjvz9/20170806_150718.jpg?dl=0)

The small metal plate in the door is where the mail comes.

This particular installation is not vacuum based though, so we still need a
trash car that comes and empties the trash room in the basement.

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lobster_johnson
That's very common, though, both in the US and elsewhere. The vacuum system is
what makes the NY setup unique.

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phasecode
I wish there were more pictures of the turbines/overall system! Does anyone
know how much this costs to run in comparison to normal trash pickups?

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lstamour
[https://vimeo.com/11804927](https://vimeo.com/11804927) via
[http://fasttrash.org/exhibition/introduction/](http://fasttrash.org/exhibition/introduction/)
via atlasobscura.

As to cost
[https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/-/media/Files/Publications/Resear...](https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/-/media/Files/Publications/Research/Transportation/Eliminating-
trucks-on-Roosevelt-Island-for-the-Collection-of-Wastes.pdf) suggests it’s
10-25% cheaper to operate, but when you factor in capital costs, it's 40-90%
more expensive, if I'm reading the abstract correctly.

~~~
Symbiote
The waste is still collected by truck from the terminal, and presumably driven
to somewhere else in New York.

London tries to reduce large vehicle traffic by taking the waste away by
barge; you can see the place in central London here [1] (I like the irony of
"Smuggler's Way".) The Roosevelt Island waste terminal is at the edge of the
island, so this is a missed opportunity -- if there's anywhere to accept it by
barge. (London's used to go to [2], a quick search suggests it now goes to
[3].)

[1]
[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4628165,-0.1927893,296m/da...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4628165,-0.1927893,296m/data=!3m1!1e3)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucking_Marshes_Landfill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucking_Marshes_Landfill)

[3]
[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Cory+Riverside+Energy/@5...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Cory+Riverside+Energy/@51.5055146,0.1411419,2284m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m8!1m2!2m1!1sBelvedere!3m4!1s0x0:0xc850ed59b2f5a045!8m2!3d51.5045955!4d0.1552597)
/
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Resource_Recovery_ER...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Resource_Recovery_ERF)

~~~
ams6110
I thought New York piled all their trash on barges and dumped it in the ocean.
Not anymore?

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rbcgerard
Sounds nice - but I'd love to know what the cost of the system was and the
annual upkeep/maintence repair expense, energy costs etc compared to regular
trash pick up...can one make a compelling case that these should be more
widely used?

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nashashmi
I cringe at the thought of how more complex the underground utility system
will become because of something like this. There are some streets in New York
which hardly have any additional room left for more utilities.

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notirk
Residential buildings in NYC need to separate their trash into three types:
recyclable containers, paper, and general trash. How is this accounted for
with a single tube system? Do they have exemptions from the law? Can they only
drop certain things into the shoot on certain days?

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gdilla
Separation comes post-chuck. In other words, they have people sort it
afterwards. All those public trash cans in NYC too - they sort it downstream.

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jccalhoun
Ever since I saw the US remake of Dark Water I have said that if I ever lived
in NYC I would live on Roosevelt Island.

