Category: Collection & Urban

We evaluated current waste management on a 5 block stretch of Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn. Working with Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, who manage the Open Street, we designed solutions to reduce and containerize all residential, commercial and litter bin waste. Some of our recommendations are implementable immediately, and others require coordination with the city. Read the […]

All colleges and universities generate large volumes of waste thatcan be diverted, as the Columbia University example shows, but not allpossess the resources to develop solutions or the campus culture tosupport them. The Post-Landfill Action Network (PLAN) is a nonprofitorganization that works with college and university students and staffto introduce zero waste projects on-site, such […]

During the 2000s, the Korean government implemented “pay-as-you-throw” volume-based charging schemes across all different types of waste materials.  The goal is to segregate non-recyclable and recyclable waste streams and reduce waste at the source through incentivisation. The collection of household food scraps and organics was implemented after the charging schemes for non-conventional household items – […]

The Eastern Community Recycling Station (formerly known as Community Green Station) has been in operation since 2015. Besides functioning as a recycling collection point, it also includes an education centre, office, a landscaped area, and a multi-purpose room for exhibitions, activities, and programs that promotes waste reduction and green living. The collected recyclables are sorted […]

Paris is a low-rise city with one of the highest population densities in Europe. Most buildings are six stories or fewer. Residents are accustomed to bringing their waste and recyclables down to street-level receptacles inside their building. Each morning or night, building staff roll bins from courtyards and entryways to the curb for collection by […]

Vitry-sur-Seine is a diverse city of 90,000 outside Paris where 75%of residents live in apartment buildings, a third of which is public housing. In 2008, as the city embarked on a major urban renewal project to improve conditions in several of its public housing estates and to develop an interurban tramline, Vitry was also revisiting […]

The Hague is the Netherlands’ third-largest city. Until recently, door- to-door collection of refuse in bags or wheeled bins was the norm, with residents carrying recyclables to shared containers on certain “recycle streets.” The city struggled to keep its narrow streets clean because seagulls pecked open bags left out for collection, strewing garbage and making […]

Roosevelt Island is a planned community of 14,000 in the East River, between Manhattan and Queens. The 1969 master plan by Philip Johnson and John Burgee envisioned a full-service community without cars.28 Tasked with finding a way to remove trash without trucks, engineers installed a pneumatic tube network—the first such system for municipal solid waste in […]

Punts verds (Catalan for “green points”) are small recycling centers installed in plazas and parks. Barcelona developed the semi-permanent staffed facilities to provide residents with opportunities to drop off household hazardous waste, recyclables and smaller bulk items within walking distance of their homes. Punts verds complement larger recycling centers with vehicle access on the outskirts […]