Automated vacuum collection

An automated vacuum waste collection system, also known as pneumatic refuse collection, or automated vacuum collection (AVAC), transports waste at high speed through underground pneumatic tubes to a collection station where it is compacted and sealed in containers. When the container is full, it is transported away and emptied. The system helps facilitate separation and recycling of waste.

The process begins with the deposit of trash into intake hatches, called portholes, which may be specialized for waste, recycling, or compost. Portholes are located in public areas and on private property where the owner has opted in. The waste is then pulled through an underground pipeline by air pressure difference created by large industrial fans, in response to porthole sensors that indicate when the trash needs to be emptied and help ensure that only one kind of waste material is travelling through the pipe at a time. The pipelines converge on a central processing facility that uses automated software to direct the waste to the proper container, from there to be trucked to its final location, such as a landfill or composting plant.

The first system was created in Sweden in the 1960s, designed by the Swedish corporation Envac AB (formerly known as Centralsug AB). The first installation was in 1961 at Sollefteå Hospital. The first vacuum system for household waste, was installed in the new residential district of Ör-Hallonbergen, Sweden in 1965.

The Envac proprietary system, Envac Automated Waste Collection System, is used in more than 30 countries.

There are close to a thousand systems in operation all over the world - in China, South East Asia, Korea, the Middle East, the United States, and Europe. In the U.S., this type of system is installed in several places but Disney World and Roosevelt Island are the best known.

Major cities in which the system is operating include Copenhagen, Barcelona, London, and Stockholm.

Currently in Israel there are 3 systems - operational, under construction and planned - in Yavne, Ra'anana and Bat Yam, respectively. In a techo-economic analysis by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, it was found that the cost of intra-urban treating in pneumatic collection in neighborhoods with multiple units and under funding contractors is 25% lower in comparison to conventional methods, and this is without internalizing the external benefits arising from it (value of time and pollution). It was also found that if the data referred to neighborhoods with higher buildings (with the same number of housing units), the cost of a pneumatic system was even cheaper (at least approximately 20%)

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Wikipedia