The Chute
Re-imagining waste management and recycling.
At Modular Product Lab, we are passionate about finding ways to help save our planet. A primary concern we share is the human impact on the environment and specifically the reduction of waste. We started with a simple idea that examines the overall approach which is being taken today, with attention toward optimizing the waste management lifecycle.
Waste Management Facts
Of the 267.8 million tons of municipal solid waste generated by Americans in 2017, only 94.2 million tons were recycled or composted. Source: US EPA www.epa.gov
Because U.S. recycling was dependent on China for so many years, our domestic recycling infrastructure was never developed, so there was no economical or efficient way to handle recycling when the market disappeared [in 2018.] Source: news.climate.columbia.edu
America’s current recycling contamination levels are 25%, meaning one of four items in our recycling bins shouldn’t be there. Source: www.earthday.org
About Creative Destruction Lab
Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) is a nonprofit organization that delivers an objectives-based program for massively scalable, seed-stage, science and technology based companies. The Chute product is Modular Product Lab’s submission to CDL’s Climate stream for 2021, where we hope to collaborate on this project with mentors in Paris, Oxford, and Vancouver.
Overview
The Chute concept is simple: To re-imagine residential and commercial waste management as a utility, much like water and sewage. Rather than separating garbage and “taking out the trash and recycling,” only to risk contamination and overuse of landfills, home and business users can dispose of trash in a single hole that processes everything. The result is a managed pipeline of landfill waste, clean compost, toxic waste, and recyclable materials, fully-optimized by computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics, and connected delivery.
Vision
Our vision is to create a cleaner Earth by reducing negative impacts on the environment. We want to develop and partner with companies to build integrated systems. Eventually, our products would be installed in connected buildings and we would support international standards, co-develop supporting technologies, sponsor research, and introduce the products and services to make broader and more complex solutions viable for municipalities.
Strategy
The goal along the way is to reduce the volume of landfill and toxic waste, while optimizing recycling capability by eliminating contamination through innovations in sorting and delivery.
Our initial product may simply handle the first-stage separation within a single dwelling, removing barriers many people experience with recycling and composting. This could evolve into a more sophisticated standalone appliance for a single family home or a larger unit meant to serve multi-family dwellings, food service, offices parks, and manufacturing sites.
Like the microwave oven or the bathroom toilet, a key strategy over time is to continually improve the solution, making it more efficient, more affordable, and ultimately, widely available to consumers (and directly to property developers) so it becomes ubiquitous and more viable than alternatives.
A future state invisions this becoming a regional standard, leveraging distributed subsystems and managed pipelines to serve a wider community or city infrastructure. An additional benefit seen here is a massive reduction of inefficient waste pick-up and delivery services that rely on improper human handling and costly transportation and sorting services.
Exploration
Problem Statements
-
Angela. I struggle with the management of my trash. I want to make smart choices, but it’s often difficult to know what is recyclable, let alone how to best separate it. I’ll often throw something in the trash because I just don’t know. It’s painful knowing I could have made a better decision.
-
David. In my community, I am unable to recycle most things. Glass for example, is something I know can be recycled, but a solution isn’t available to me—or at least not without collecting and hauling it across town, wasting my time and going to a place that smells terrible, not to mention the potential of making a big mess in my car.
-
Maria. I hate taking out the trash and dealing with recycling. It’s messy and time consuming. Most of the time, I would rather just pay the extra fees to throw everything away. Yeah, I know it’s not the best for the planet, but no one else seems to care. I just wish it was something I didn’t have to think about.
-
Raffaella. I work in a restaurant, where I see tons of food waste being thrown into the garbage. I am aware there are ways to compost or better deal with this stuff, but we can barely keep up with everything else we need to do. Plus, it’s just cheaper to pay to have someone haul it away.
-
Malik. At my business, we have tried repeatedly to institute recycling but it has ended up costing us more than we bargained for. Employees rarely pay attention to the guidelines and end up contaminating most of the items we collect, so we end up throwing a lot of it away or paying enormous fees to deal with it.
Having an Impact
Currently, waste management is provided by a mixture of municipalities and regional agencies, limited by operational capabilities and management costs. While there are companies providing waste sorting, disposal, and transport solutions, consumer choice is limited.
Our first product appeals to those who value and can afford an alternative. The benefit is peace of mind and convenience, while reducing one’s environmental impact.
_jp.jpg)
“I use The Chute in my home and business and it has made dealing with garbage easier than you could imagine. I just put all of my waste into the hole and I know everything is being handled the way it’s supposed to. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to spend time sorting my garbage and rinsing recycling, plus I don’t have to drag huge smelly bins to the street”
Market Competition
While not a technology in itself, our differentiator is essentially the way in which we see the product from a systems point of view. Our appliance-focused initial product strategy is primarily a test-bed for intake components of a broader solution. We believe this direction will ultimately unseat the status quo and help even align our competitors toward a common goal.
Clean Robotics is a company developing an innovative “TrashBot” product, which is being sold as a point solution in high-traffic areas as a way to more efficiently collect and sort waste. Their product demonstrates the general feasibility of addressing the waste diversion problem, helping their customers reduce those associated costs. Clean Robotics could be a technology partner in developing The Chute or a point-solution provider.
Next Steps
Development of this product rests on considerable research and a working team—both of which require funding. As we gather the resources, the time required to produce a prototype demonstrating either an in-home or restaurant appliance is (optimistically) 1-2 years.
We are actively seeking contributors and collaborators on this project. If you are interested or know of parties looking to invest or get involved, please contact us!
