Going underground

Science Park, a 54-acre office park in Hong Kong, is home to more than 330 corporate tenants in 26 buildings (with more under construction). As its name implies, many of these tenants are technology firms.

The business and research park is perhaps a logical home for an alternative recycling and waste collection method that its advocates say collects materials in an energy-efficient, hygienic and discreet fashion while also reducing the number of truck trips involved.

Jeffrey Siu Bun Shu, managing director of Hong Kong-based Envac Far East Ltd., a subsidiary of Sweden-based Envac AB (www.envacgroup.com), says the system Envac designed and installed at Science Park appealed to the property owner for the above reasons and others, starting with aesthetics.
 

Out of Sight

Property developers Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks Corp. “set up Science Park as being a high-tech cluster,” says Siu. “They didn’t want trucks coming in and emptying bins behind every building.”

The developer’s preference was to “have one point for waste and recycling collection for all the buildings,” Siu says. “Our system perfectly matches their requirements.”

A system of sheet metal tubes and vacuum motors convey office paper and dry waste instead of the combination of trucks, hand carts and forklifts that may normally be needed to serve a multitenant campus such as Science Park (www.hkstp.org/en-US/Homepage.aspx).

The tube ductwork is underground or affixed to ceilings at the lower parking levels of buildings. Material is introduced into the campuswide system at accessible chute openings found throughout buildings.

At Science Park, chutes are labeled either for office paper or for waste, and materials initially enter separate tubes. The main duct system opens up to receive materials from these collection points, but never simultaneously.

On the upper floors of office buildings, the energy-efficient force of gravity gets materials started on their journey, Siu says.

The vacuum motors do not run nonstop but are activated as necessary, when sensors detect a suitable amount of one material or the other to exert suction force.

Materials end their journey in two sealed metal containers (after passing through filters that collect the dust) at a facilities services building located at one edge of the Science Park campus. The two storage containers and the adjacent loading dock are near a driveway where trucks can enter Science Park and access the material without rumbling past the buildings that house the tenants.

Those truck visits are relatively infrequent, Siu says, with the waste container being emptied an average of once per day and the office paper unit once per week.
 

Plenty of places

Office parks are not the only places that use vacuum collection systems, and property owners in places beyond East Asia also use the automated systems.

With Sweden as Envac’s home base, numerous installations have taken place in Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, including Spain, Germany and France.

Siu lists “Sweden, the Middle East, South Korea, Singapore and China” as the places with the most sales and installation activity in the previous three years.

High-profile buildings or companies that are part of Envac’s installation base of more than 700 projects include:

• an underground system at Disney World in Florida;
• the 101-floor Taipei 101 building in Taiwan (a location where “gravity is definitely an ally,” Siu says);
• the Villa Olimpica in Barcelona, Spain;
• the Jumeriah Beach residential complex in Dubai, United Arab Emirates;
• the Wembley City development surrounding that British stadium; and
• airports in Munich and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
   

The company’s origins trace back to the early 1960s, when founder Olof Hallström wondered whether the same vacuum force that had helped automate household dust collection also could help automate the collection of larger items.

Hallstrom contended, according to Envac’s company history, that “in many cities across the world, waste collection is still based on 19th century principles.”

In the ensuing decades, as recycling has grown to represent a larger percentage of the discarded materials stream, Envac’s ability to customize systems to collect recyclables has grown along with it.

The municipal system installed in Llodio, a town of 18,000 in Spain, handles three fractions: packaging materials, paper and mixed waste. It has the capacity to collect up to 10 metric tons daily of recyclables and waste.

A similar setup exists in the neighborhood surrounding London’s Wembley Stadium. (See the sidebar, “Pitch Perfect” above.)
 

Selling points

Vacuum systems offer a proposition that is common to many forms of technology in its ability to automate a task and reduce the labor hours required. Collecting recyclables and waste in this fashion reduces not only labor costs, Siu says, but also liabilities in the form of potential injuries.

The multiple lifting and moving of materials can result in minor or chronic injuries, he says, while increased truck traffic in a residential or campuslike area may not only be unwelcome for the noise but also can have safety consequences.

Reducing truck traffic is one of several aesthetic and hygiene-related selling points Siu mentions when asked why buyers opt for these systems despite their initial costs.

They appeal to property owners and municipalities that want to “camouflage” collection containers, he says, with underground systems being especially effective.

Waste and recycling bins can attract pests, ranging from fruit flies and bees to rats and larger animals, depending on the location. “A sealed system is a very hygienic way to handle these materials,” Siu says.

Vacuum systems normally are not designed to collect old corrugated containers (OCC) in large quantities. In parts of the world where there is either an OCC reuse market or an entrenched peddler collection network, this is less of problem, Siu adds. Property owners can maintain their existing loyalty to their OCC collectors.

In some cases, he says, Envac has “included a baler in the central collection station where the manually collected cardboard easily can be pressed and bundled for further transportation and processing by a recycling company.”

Asia’s urbanization has kept Siu’s Envac Far East office busy, as has the growing influence of green building rating systems.

He cites the example of one developer in Shanxi province, China, who was “skeptical about our first system and withheld the last payment until we powered it on. Now he has ordered a second system for a new residential complex he is building.”

The author is editor of Recycling Today and can be reached at btaylor@gie.net.