Waste management a challenge in urban high-rise buildings

The urban landscape in India is chaotic and Indian cities are not only among the world’s most polluted, they’re also among the dirtiest. The reason why Indian cities are among the dirtiest is because of the absence of an efficient waste management system.

Municipalities in Indian cities work tirelessly to remove garbage from streets; yet despite their endeavours, most parts of urban India remain eyesores.

To beautify Indian cities, what is needed is not hard work, but smart work using technology. Across India, sweepers sweep dirt to the side of roads while garbage trucks collect and transport garbage to massive landfills or garbage dumps.

Despite this frenzy of activity, no city in Indian can rival Tokyo, London, Paris or Washington DC in cleanliness. 

There is no quick solution to the challenge of waste management in urban India. Transforming Indian cities into shimmering and spotless urban centres demands behavioural changes in citizens.

While such behavioural change may take decades, a few practical technologies to better manage waste are available right now.

There is little effort to optimise waste disposal in residential high rises. One solution to managing the hundreds of tons of garbage produced in high rises every day is by installing garbage chutes. Garbage chutes are an effective and affordable way to manage waste because they don’t demand an army of garbage collectors to go from door to door collecting rubbish.

In Mumbai and other Indian cities where high rises are common, garbage chutes are a practical and affordable means of disposing garbage.

In addition to keeping buildings, residential societies and cities cleaner, garbage chutes are also very easy to use. A garbage chute consists of a long metal tube that is installed vertically along the internal support structure of a building.

It has an opening at each floor into which residents can drop garbage. Because of garbage chutes’ simplicity and ease of use, even households that manage waste poorly by dumping it in public places or by allowing it to accumulate, are likely to toss garbage in chutes. 

Another advantage of garbage chutes is they have separate openings for garbage meant to be recycled. The presence of a separate chute for recycling encourages households, who may be unaware about recycling.

Buildings that have such chutes don’t face problems arising from discarded garbage. Once people toss the rubbish into a chute, it falls into a dumpster.

When garbage is thrown into a chute, it is never touched again by another human being. This makes them an economical and sanitary means of disposing off filth because few people are required to collect garbage and fewer people to handle it.

Another advantage is that many chutes are equipped with a cleaning and sanitising system that eliminates foul smells and germs.

Ideally, garbage chutes should be installed when a building is under construction; however, chutes can be installed even in fully constructed and occupied buildings.

IoT devices and AI ensure that any part of a garbage chute that needs repair is tended to quickly. Because of such technologies, residents in high rises need not worry about how garbage will be collected if their chute is damaged or broken.

The chute will be able to immediately report to an infrastructure partner if it malfunctions, prompting the arrival of a maintenance team.

Certainly there is no magic bullet to transform Indian cities just yet, but there are technologies based on IoT that can help better manage waste.

Some such technologies allow waste to be collected from dumpsters when required. Doing so ensures that resources and manpower are used optimally.

No one would argue that urban cities in India aren’t in need of drastically better waste management. While a comprehensive solution to making Indian cities garbage and pollution-free is still out of reach, the installation of garbage chutes and ancillary technologies that support their functioning will help make cities cleaner and more enjoyable to live in.

Author is VP Europe, ME Universal