Garbage is a burden and the citizen is of course partly to blame. The headline in the newspapers and magazines reads something like this. Consume less with packaging is the motto. Of course, the citizen always has to do everything here. But you may not believe it, in fact, shops and retail chains are already working on smart shopping opportunities to produce as little waste as possible. Packaging is becoming thinner and lighter, the cavities with which large packages have always been cheated have shrunk. Fresh goods without plastic bags. Milk to tap if you bring your own bottles. This is of course nice and shows what is possible. But in the end, these first advances are always found where rubbish on the streets is still removed with machines. The less or not at all industrialized countries spread a multiple of garbage. There the positive effect would be clearly visible, based on a statistic. The many industrialists have managed to offer the plastic products in every country in the world. But you don't have a penny to build up a complete infrastructure for waste disposal in poor countries. Does anyone understand. Now where there is no law, there is freedom of fools. For example, if you look at the bubbling profits of the Coca Cola Company, which were 9 billion dollars in 2019, then an investment in a waste incineration plant with subsequent electricity production of 200 million dollars would not be much. The region would have a reason to speak well of Coca Cola. Expanded further, something like this strengthens relations with these countries. You all know the garbage dumps that wander like a Sahara desert through different regions in this world. If one is full, a new one is simply dug up. Can actually be compared to the speed of the assembly line, in which short time one landfill is created after the other. This has been happening for as long as the increase in garbage has been recorded. Poor countries even buy up the garbage just to fill a new landfill. Does anyone understand? Only difficult and if you are honest, not at all.

 

This is of course a big story. So you can see in every chain that produces, there is also potential to save energy and waste. Even to be avoided altogether.

 

One way of saving that you can pay attention to is that of logistics. So the way the garbage collection every 14 days and 28 days

power (2-4 weeks).

Why is there this rhythm? It has established itself and the industry, which has constantly developed waste management, has not considered the corresponding possibilities in all areas. Of course, the rhythm also depends on how big the individual trash cans are. The size is then regulated by standards.

If you were to extend the emptying dates and the rhythm to 21 and 35 days

this can save energy and money. On the cost side above all for the citizen. If a garbage truck drives out 10-20 times less per year, the costs add up per district and district. I have no data on this. You can of course make a direct request to the suppliers of the individual cities. It's not just about whether and how much you could save and is only intended to show that if the industry were serious every time someone walked the streets with a pollution flag, then something would still work. Of course, costs / usage must be correct.

 

What would the industry have to consider so that primary energy, i.e. oil and diesel, can be saved?

 

For those who have an idea, it always seems easy. Quite simply, every household should have included its own hand press for the next generation of garbage cans.

The hand press can be integrated into the garbage can and operated with both arms in such a way that the volume of garbage decreases significantly. In numbers 40-50% volume savings. From the point of view of the idea, that was all.

In practice, however, this turns out to be much more difficult. Whereby the topic difficult for engineers always reflects a challenge. Of course, if the managing director does not want to spend any money and no tax advantages are provided by the state, then many managing directors always have a hard time. But it also shows that you don't want to use this screw in the energy industry. You always have to recognize the leverage effect, then even the smallest changes become gigantic.

 

Making an urban quality prototype shouldn't be a problem. But how easy is it really to operate the integrated manual garbage compactor? What about emptying by the machine on the garbage truck? Can something get stuck or tangled? Will the emptying process per garbage can at the garbage truck increase by a total of 5-10 seconds? Pushing garbage together manually may make it more difficult to empty!

To do this, you have to do one of many test runs. This requires capacities in the form of employees, time and space. Even before that you can build a 3D animation on the computer. You can use modern CAD programs for this. There you can see if it works and how it would work. With a 3D printer, a garbage can with a manual hand press can be printed out inexpensively on a miniature scale of 1/10 with relatively little effort, in cm approx. 10x10cm. Leverage forces and tensile forces can also be calculated with the software. The material thickness of the outer and inner walls can also be adjusted. Can older people perform this movement on the hand press? Would doctors possibly even attest that it would be good for the muscles? A little training on the garbage compactor for everyone. How long does a rubbish bin last in simulated continuous operation? and what does the additional effort cost by integrating a garbage compactor?

 

This idea should also make it clear how many steps and processes are set in motion once an idea has emerged.

How much energy do you save now? What changes anyway? Now in the pilot project you can select a small town and test the new trash cans there over a period of 3-6 months. After an evaluation and feedback from the citizens, you can then fine-tune the details before a large series of garbage cans with a manual garbage compactor goes into series production.

Of course, private households and homeowners can already buy manual garbage compactors today. This costs between 20-100€. Can be easily found with the search engine > Manual compactor / hand press.

What does that mean for waste disposal companies? Now 10-20 trips per year less. The employees do not have less to do as a result, but these 10-20 working days gained per year must be restructured for the waste management companies. redistribution of labor. In total, that's 70-140 hours less work per year per employee per city.

The large garbage trucks are used up to 20 times less a year. Apart from the fact that the garbage trucks do not consume any energy on these 20 days, there are a few other amenities. For example, maintenance and repair costs are reduced. Seen over the course of a year, that might be trivial and others would call it ridiculous. But if you calculate the savings over 5 or 10 years, then we are in large 4-digit ranges per city and per garbage truck. So that is no longer irrelevant. But you also have to put it in relation to misplanning and wasting tax spending each year. The amount on average to 40 billion euros. 4-digit amounts are not even worth a toothpick. In this way, waste management can make waste cheaper or increase profits in the years to come.

 

If a company is doing well, you can of course offer public service employees 2 additional paid vacation days. With a proper revision of the work schedules through the gained 70-140 hours of work per year, it might also be possible to think about a lower number of hours per week. With a low salary at the same time, of course, you don't make friends with it. The development of the individual sectors of the economy clearly shows where in recent years 40 hours a week has become 38 hours and 38 hours has become 35 ½ hours for some people. So there is a clear tendency to work less per week. Depending on the business of course.

When it comes to financial aspects, many people are always happy. It's always been like that, especially when you're on the employers' side. Are there any other advantages that a change in the emptying dates would entail. Of course, 10-20 days a year there would be fewer traffic jams on the roads. Garbage trucks regularly cause small traffic jams. Traffic would be smoother. Flowing traffic costs less money. In a simulation you can show what energy is lost in the air nationwide every day. All drivers reach their destination more or less on time. But the risk and the associated risk of accidents are also reduced for the working team in the garbage truck for the 10-20 days. There are definitely stats here. But these are not available to me. Here, of course, there are always only figures at the municipal/city level, i.e. a small town has 2 or 5 garbage trucks, a slightly larger one has 10, etc. This quickly results in horrendous sums of 8 or 9 digits nationwide when calculated over 10 years.Although saving energy was the focus of this idea, it is no longer possible to get riders off their horses with it. Cash only and if companies can save a lot, these are powerful arguments. Someone who has studied the energy economics of waste disposal plants and is familiar with the actual figures could give a good estimate of how much Co2/kg or Co2 tonne is saved per year.In the beginning there is only a small change in how you could adapt a garbage can, but in the end there is a big advantage for the economy. In fact, for more than one economy (Somewhere in Europe).

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