Editor,
As I look at the garbage and recycle containers as I walk around the neighborhood, I notice that they are mostly full of air. By air I mean that there is mostly empty space in the container. So I thought, what would the size of my garbage and recycling be if I compressed all the air out, or at least as much as possible. To my surprise, it was about a 50% reduction in volume. The weight stayed about the same.
At this point I thought, what about other packages that we are trucking around. They probably are on average 50% air. What is the ramification?
If we could reduce our garbage, recycle and delivery by 50% volume, it would follow that the garbage and delivery trucks could be reduced by about the same percentage in size and weight. These vehicles would still transport the same amount of weight, but only 50% of the volume. These vehicles could be smaller and lighter, helping in the battle fighting pollution. Our streets, roads and highways would be last longer and not be damaged by the larger and heavier vehicles.
An analysis would have to be done to determine if this concept of not transporting air could be expanded to the larger trucks on our highways.
I’m sure all the companies involved in these activities already have the weight, density and volume of what they deliver, so all calculations should be straight forward.
Why should we pay to have air delivered? Great way to reduce our costs and help the environment.
Stephen Schneider first predicted Global Warming in 1976. If we should have started making changes then, we are way behind the curve. Time to get the air out!
Bob Krainz
Belmont
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(1) comment
While this sounds like a simple solution, the fact is that garbage trucks already have compacters built in, which squeezes the air out as Bob said. So there would be little to no size in the size of trucks -- trash companies want them as big as possible so they can finish as large a route as possible before returning to the transfer station.
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