Pneumatic waste collection system - A proposed innovation for Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee Campus, India

Abstract

Solid Waste Management (SWM) is a challenging issue to be addressed in most of the urban centres in India. Heavy population densities and exponential growth of the cities’ boundaries, due to migration, create kiosks to the cities’ resources such as land and other amenities. In such cities, the unsegregated waste gets generated in huge quantities while the rest are dumped in landfill sites without any specific treatment. Centralised and holistic approaches are missing, as most of the waste-to-energy & waste treatment plants are either getting closed or not working to its fullest efficiency. The strategies for a decentralised collection system, segregation and treatment of waste are not usually standard practices. In spite of the global impacts being pretty visible due to global warming, a massive amount of plastic gets dumped into ocean, which reaches the human beings via food chain and results in the most number of incurable diseases like cancer. Further, it also results in rapid extinction of the indigenous species. Campuses are known as mini-city or autonomous urban centres for knowledge sharing and the development of innovations. The time is here to make the Indian campuses smatter in collecting and treating the waste on their premises. Hence, the pneumatic collection process of the garbage can play an essential role in making the campus, an advanced and a sustainable one. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop a compact and a decentralised strategy to manage the waste in various urban centres. Also, a formalised informal sector of waste could be contributing to further recycling and processing of the garbage on the campus. The aim of the current research investigation is to identify various possibilities for making the campus, a smart one, in terms of waste management. Furthermore, the study also intends to find out how the compact, decentralised waste collection methods in urban can manage their solid waste in the limited available space. Making zero-waste campuses is a herculean task and a massive challenge must be dealt with immediately to help the cities achieve long-term sustainability.