Contemporary engineering practices: a case of solar trash compactor in Oregon Zoo

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published: 1/13/2014

ABSTRACT

There is a growing new trend in the world which is shifting the focus towards a more energy conserving world in both application and studies. This shift in focus is centred around understanding ways to reduce the level of energy consumption the world and subsequently reduce the growing treats posed by global warming in the sustainability of both humanity and other features on Green Earth. Such a new trend has resulted in the increase of both regional and international interest on polices and approaches adopted by the governments and organizations across the world towards creating a new world order where the threat of global warming will be reduced significantly on the basis of combined efforts.

Solar trash compactor which was first introduced in the USA is one of such means through which energy can be reduced. It has been described as a revolutionary machine in the field of waste management in the sense that it has transformed what is believed and expected into some sort of engineering wonder – as the compactor is able to swallow 5 times the normal size of waste bins and recycle waste on its own. Additionally, the compactor is able to alert the waste collector once the waste is filled up and also reduce the level of pests and rodents as a result of its closed compartment.

As such, the purpose of this paper is to understand the concept of waste management undertaken by the solar trash compactor and analysed how it has significantly contributed towards ensuring environmental sustainability and ethics in the community. The paper will basically analysed the concept of engineering in the system, the functionality, and how it has significantly reduced the environmental influence poor waste management machines.

Solar trash compactors: the SMART solution for waste management and recycling

The solar trash compactors also known as the “Big Belly” is the transformational engineering for waste management and recycling in organizations as well as public places. This is because, it offers efficiency in waste management and recycles, saves times and resources which also reducing the amount of carbon emission.

The big belly system provides modular components that are used to provide waste management and recycling solutions that meet the need of each keeping a healthy and clean environment in the modern business world. All of the components are capable of providing both real-time and historical information about data collection, and they can be easily be accessed through the cloud-base CLEAN management console (Bigbelly.com, 2013).

For each of the waste stream, users can choose between SmartBelly components – which is used to determine how full the company is for trash, single-stream recycling, bottles or cans recycling, paper or organic recycling, or BigBelly components which provides on-site compaction of trash or single stream recycling to provide extra room for 5 times the normal size of the container, while also reporting fullness and collection data (Bigbelly.com, 2013). The benefits of the system include:

Tidy stations – stations that have a lot of littered particles will make use of this machine to reduce such littering as it will provide enough compartments for accommodation and recycling all the trashes that will be collected in the station. The endpoint is a happy ride for travellers and a trash free station (Bigbelly.com, 2013).

Enhanced maintenance of parks – the days will be gone when dirty critters will be littered around the park, as the component will be able to enhance waste management in parks by  accommodation large amount of waste and recycling these wastes to offer tourists the opportunity of enjoying a dirty free park during their visit (Bigbelly.com, 2013).

Enhance sustainability in through recycling program – since the system will be able to reduce the amount of carbon emission while also recycling waste on the spot, sustainability will be enhanced because the environment will become safer and there won’t be the need to transport the trash from its place of collection to its place of recycling (Bigbelly.com, 2013).

 Market need for solar trash compactors

Considering the functions of the component as described above, there is a high need for solar trash compactors in the Malaysian. This need can be attributed to the fact that it will reduce waste management cost. It has been identified that a single container has the power to compress at least 5 times the normal size of waste that a container of its size can handle. Most of all, it also has the power to recycle these waste according to category such as bottles and cans, papers and organic etc. All these functions are usually undertaken by different machines and required different expenses in relation to the time of undertaking such functions. However, with the aid of Solar Trash Compactors, these functions can be run in one single machine and the subsequent result is better trash management and reduces cost of waste management. As such, it can easily be deduced that the demand for the system will be high.

The adoption of the system has also been identified as having the potential to improve the standard of life in the country. This is because; it will reduce the volume of waste in the country, enhance the management of waste in parks, reduce the volume of littered waste in transport stations and significantly reduce carbon emission. Therefore, it is projected that the demand as related to these benefits that the component can yield on Malaysia will have significant positive returns.

Degree of innovation in solar trash compactors

The solar trash compressor works on “CLEAN,” which stands for Collection Logistics Efficiency and Notification software. The software is programmed in such a way that the solar trash compactor collects waste from the public, and compresses the waist in the system. On the process of collecting the way, the machine also collects solar energy from the sun and stored it in a battery in the component. Once the solar system is fully, the machine will compress the waste with the solar energy by removing all the air in the waste. The component also has infrared sensor that notifies collectors once the waste is fully to come and pick up the waste. On the upper side of the system is an opening where people can put in their trash for the component to recycle it. The storage possibility created by the solar trash compactor in relation to storing solar energy means that the machine can function irrespective of the weather condition as it needs little amount of sunlight for the energy system to be filled up. The level of innovation is really high because the machine combined numerous functions that are usually undertaken by different machines into one system, and most of all it adopts solar energy for functioning and reducing the need for energy supply.

Understanding the Malaysian waste management industry

Waste management is something that has been well implemented in Malaysia for years, but the waste management authority is experiencing difficulties in recent years as a result of increasing sources of waste in the country. It has been noted by slideshare.com (2013) and the increase waste in the country can be attributed to a number of factors in the form of:

 Increasing community activities – it has been noted that the number of activities in the country has been increasing over the years, and this increase in the number of activities can be attributed as the source of the subsequent increase in the number of waste generation in the country. For instance, it has been noted that over the past decade, the number of industries in the country has increased by a high rate as well as the number of housing facilities and other social amenities such as recreational centres. All these new waste generation systems have also been well integrated into the waste management system in order to ensure a cleaner Malaysian community.

 Increasing economic conditions – over the years, Malaysian economy has been growing as a result of numerous factors, and this has also yielded increase in the number of middle-class families and consumers’ spending power. Such an increase results in a subsequent increase in the number of waste generated and this means that the waste management agency need to call to mind the fact that there should be a subsequent increase in the number of waste management systems.

How the new engineering wonder in Oregon Zoo contributed to sustainability

From the above analysis, it has been noted that the need to maintain a clean environment in which the action of the present generation doesn’t contradict with the possibility of future generation achieving their wants is necessary. This is because, if the environment is endangered presently, it will influence the possibility of future generations to achieve their desired wants negatively. The new solar trash compactor reduces such negative influence significantly by redesigning the waste management system in such a way that it recycling is no longer a thing that must be done in the sight, but instead recycling can actually be done in by the trash collecting compartments itself. Additionally, the machine operates solely on solar energy and it reduces the level of energy consumption as well as reduces the threats posed by high level of energy consumption in the form of global warming. As such, the new compactor creates an environment for increased sustainability through a subsequent increase in proper management of waste and reduction in energy consumption.

How the new engineering wonder in Oregon Zoo contributes significantly to ethical changes

As noted in the discussion, it was stated that the main reasons for improper management of waste is the lack of right attitude form people. This is because, most of the people don’t take extra time to ensure that their waste are properly disposed but instead they dispose of wastes at the road side or by the side of a waste bin instead of actually putting it inside the waste bin. Cases of vandalism have also been accounted for as one of the reasons why proper waste management is becoming difficult in the country. The new solar tract compactor solves this issue with its elegant design which attracts people towards it and its high belly power that has the power of consuming up to 5 times the normal size of other waste bins. Additionally, it alerts the waste collector when it is filled up and it has a closed compartment that doesn’t allows wastes to fall off as is experienced with the traditional waste bins. All these features combined together reduces the ethical issues discussed above in the sense that people will now be forced as well as persuaded in most cases to properly dispose their waste and the issue of late collection will also be reduced as the compactor will alert collectors once filled up. Vandalism is also eliminated because the compactor has laser alarm that will ring up when violent acts is exercised towards it.

Brief conclusion

From the above analysis, it can be seen that there is a shift in contemporary engineering practices, which is moving towards a redesign of approach in waste management and reduction in the consumption of energy in order to ensure environmental sustainability and reduction in unethical behaviour. The new waste compactor as can be found in Oregon Zoo has been able to solve these issues at the same time and as such it can be described as a successful engineering wonder.