NYC considers a pneumatic subway for trash

TomAqMar sez, "'If you were garbage, you'd be home by now,' says Forbes contributor Michael Kanellos in this report about a Swedish co. that's already installed on part of Roosevelt Island a pneumatic system to whisk trash to the incinerator."

Envac installed one of its vacuum systems in an area on Roosevelt Island, a thin strip of land in the shadow of Manhattan, in the 1970s. (Envac installed one at Disney World at the same time. Now, plans are under consideration to extend the network to technology campuses being erected on the island by Cornell University and the Technion.
Envac is also studying the possibility of putting networks of trash tubes under the Coney Island boardwalk, in a new development being created by a major property company, and near the Chelsea district in Manhattan. The vacuum tubes would leverage some of the infrastructure of the High Line, an urban development created from an old elevated train platform. Yes, if it goes through, pedestrians will walk underneath trash-filled tubes.
“We can retrofit in dense urban areas so we don’t have to rip up the street,” said Rosina Abramson, who runs Envac’s U.S. operations.

I sent a character crawling through the Walt Disney World ENVAC at the end of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

Will New York City Get A Subway For Garbage? (Thanks, TomAqMar!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: nyc • series of tubes • submitterator

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http://blog.monstuff.com Julien Couvreur

How does it deal with leaks or doors left open?

At the scale of a city, I wonder whether it is worth it do develop a single-purpose transportation network. What about a tube-based container delivery system (matternet)? Presumably, you could handle trash as well as deliver incoming goods, with only a little extra complexity.
- semiotix
  
  How does it deal with leaks or doors left open?
  
  As I understand these things (I went through a pneumatic tube phase in high school, like so many kids) these systems are pretty fault-tolerant. They’re built to be slightly leaky even when all the doors are shut, and the compressors are capable of taking more air out at any given moment than a few open doors can let in. At least with the old-timey message capsules, the doors were built such that the suction would pull them shut automatically.
  
  The bottom line is that it’s surprisingly easy to generate enough of an air pressure differential to move stuff around.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Yeah, the doors are sucked shut. And there has to be some airflow to keep it running, so leakage is a feature. I used one of these for 15 years.
    
    This should be a great way to get rid of incriminating evidence when the cops show up.
Brainspore

Sort of like a Memory Hole?
bigdig

Pretty hip, I agree, but I won’t get real excited until they revive New York’s pneumatic interborough snail-mail network. http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=321
- digi_owl
  
  I swear i have read about using system systems for transporting people…
  - bigdig
    
    The first subway in New York ran pneumatically, but it only covered the distance of a city block, and the technical difficulties (on top of political opposition) doomed it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_Pneumatic_Transit
http://www.facebook.com/chengjih Cheng-Jih Chen

I can’t help but think of this: http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100702142706/half-life/en/images/thumb/b/b3/Diversity_vent_diag.jpg/830px-Diversity_vent_diag.jpg

Cave Johnson: ahead of his time.
Guest

Central Services: We do the work, you do the pleasure.

http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/images/brazil07.jpg
WhyBother

Sadly, my first thought upon reading “pneumatic system to whisk trash to the incinerator” was “oh good, now there won’t be so many bodies ending up in the river.”

On the plus side, it’ll be harder to script new episodes of Law & Order: SVU.
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones
  
  Cripes, you scooped me with the Law & Order gag.
Editz

Cue Futurama theme.
- irksome
  
  Futurama hell; as an old guy, I cued up the theme music from Brazil.
  
  Wait, isn’t this how the interweb works?
signsofrain

Is it wrong that the first thing I thought was: “Someone will put a baby in there”
bcsizemo

The internet, no longer the only series of tubes.
z7q2

And when a glowing ember introduced into the system creates a forced-draft furnace?

Yup.
- J Wagner
  
  Heat detectors and smoke alarms, and a Halon system that will instantly snuff fires.
  
  Dumpster fires are the real problem, how many man-hours are spent putting them out? Maybe enough to pay for a pneumatic trash system.
- phisrow
  
  Even with plenty of air, a metal tube that gets steadily emptied isn’t exactly fire’s natural habitat…
  Worst case, you have sprinker installations at intervals that can wet down the contents if thermal excursions are detected…
  
  Now, on the other hand, bonus points for guessing which pinhead will be the first to go public with a “but what if the terrorists use the series of tubes to carry a bomb right under your sleeping children??!?!?!” scenario.
  - irksome
    
    Umm… didn’t you just win?
Andrew Singleton

How many cats will end up being sent through this thing?
- Dave Jenkins
  
  not enough.
  - Ito Kagehisa
    
    My cat feels that way about you, too.
http://www.facebook.com/michaeljamesrobinson Michael Robinson

Wow the homeless people of NYC are gonna -hate- this
- awjt
  
  No, they’ll all just end up in a big pile in the middle of the island.
LuisDanielCarbia

This is not going to end well.
- Guest
  
  Up! UPUPUPUPUPUPUPUP
pebird

Now, if we can just apply this to terminal jetways, we can all deplane much faster.