Don't Get Stuck In Trash Sucking Roosevelt Island AVAC Underground Garbage Collection System - It Could Kill You Says Engineer

Image: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

A reader sent in this link to an article in today's Wired Gadget Lab about New York City's Trash Sucking Island - which is, of course, referring to our own special Roosevelt Island pneumatic tube underground garbage collection system. From the Wired Gadget Lab:

The system of pneumatic trash-sucking tubes running beneath the surface of New York City’s Roosevelt Island is either a quirky relic or a glimpse of the future, depending on how you look at it.

A network of 20-inch tubes takes garbage from the island’s 16 residential towers, collecting from every floor, to a central collection point where it is compacted and trucked off the island. It is at once a simple and elegant solution to gathering trash, and an aging and complicated beast that needs a lot of upkeep.

“I can’t run the system right now, I got guys in the pipe. It would kill them,” said sanitation engineer Jerry Sorgente. “We have contractors here from Sweden. They crawl through the pipes, find holes and repair them...

The Roosevelt Island Automated Vacuum Assisted Collections Facility (AVAC) was the subject of the recent Fast Trash exhibit at the Gallery RIVAA. Watch the simulation of garbage hurling through Roosevelt Island's underground tubes as it makes it's way to the collection facility.

Fast Trash - Roosevelt Island's Pneumatic Tubes and the Future of Cities from Project Vimeo.

Additional information on Roosevelt Island's AVAC system and the Fast Trash exhibit is available from previous posts.

Also, more information about these types of automated garbage collection systems from the the contractors, Envac.