Fusanobu Mizogami*, Akira Naito*, Michihiro Maeda**, Osamu Kamiya*** and Takeshi Yyamane****

*Engineering Advancement Association of Japan
**JGC Corporation
***Nippon Steel Corporation
****Shin Meiwa Industry Co., Ltd.

+ Correspondence should be addressed to Michihiro Maeda:
JGC Corporation
(2-1-1, Minatomirai 2-chome, Nishi-ku, Yokohama 220-81 Japan)

Abstract

The volume of solid waste has recently increased more and more due to economic growth and the diversification of people's life styles in many cities throughout Japan. Therefore, great expectations are placed on accelerated research and development regarding effective waste collection and transportation to create a new waste collection and transportation system that harmonizes with the urban environment in the 21st century. In order to respond to this situation, high efficiency and streamlining of waste transportation have been selected for this research. In other words, wastes generated will be collected into waste collection centers, packed into capsules and capsule-transported by means of air flow, to waste treatment plants, via dedicated pipelines. The density of compressed and packed waste, surface pressure during the compression/packing and discharge of this waste, and also the drag coefficient of vehicles loaded with capsules have been obtained in experiments on the development of elemental technology, in order to solve problems involving waste transportation. Also, a simulation program for the waste transportation system has been developed and the transportation cost of waste has been trial-calculated. The results show that the system is fully viable from a commercial viewpoint.

Key words: garbage, garbage collection, garbage compression, waste transportation