Altepetl

Waste collection system supported by local sorting points, cargo-bikes and a digital system to improve separation and motivate recycling.

Long description

This system expands current garbage routes using cargo bikes with interchangeable containers: a low impact infrastructure that enables recollection in transitional points and gives formal jobs to waste pickers. By having a container for each kind of rubbish, citizens can properly sort their disposals and with the digital app, they will be able to track the recollection points and learn where to dispose each kind of material.

Once the material is recollected, it will be transported to local recycling points focused on each type of waste instead of gathering it all in single landfills (this facilitates waste classification since they don’t get mixed).

In this way the system covers a wider area (hard-to-reach areas of the metropolitan area), gathering points specialize in the management of specific materials (e.g. organic sorting points can focus on local gardening while metal or glass may contact local manufacturers or re-use the material) and users can be sure that their separation actions at home are useful.

In addition, the system gives formality and social security to people that already work sorting garbage and enables local recycling.

This system is meant to be gradually implemented, initiating with a set of cargo bikes in a small community to later on scale it to the whole metropolitan area including the digital app.

Additional Images