I have just discovered that those odd waste/recycling bins that are all over the oldest bits of Bergen, Norway, link to an UNDERGROUND PNEUMATIC WASTE TRANSPORT SYSTEM. The waste collects for a bit and then WHOOSH... it's off to the recycling centre. All underground. No bin lorries (garbage trucks), fewer road vehicles, less noise... amazing. @davidho says that my (considerable) excitement about this is entirely unreasonable. I disagree.
https://www.envacgroup.com/how-it-works/the-envac-system/

#climate #waste #Norway

@thiagocsf @davidho If you keep digging through all the information (I did), they say that it's such a smart system that it can sort out all the different packages when they arrive at the recycling plant. They know exactly what's going in, where it is, and when it arrives. It accumulated underneath each bin until there's enough to go in one package, and they can track those packages.

@helenczerski @thiagocsf @davidho Which is kinda the general-case answer; the pipe is expensive (buried downtown!) and you don't need it all the time plus you're moving discrete stuff rather than fluids so nearly anything you do to manage waste sorting that doesn't require another pipe is less expense than individual plumbing would be.

It does make me wonder if they've got a "another enterprising squirrel in bin A391" issue, and if so, what they do about it.