Saturday, May 15, 2010

Plastic Bags as Garbage Bins


An easy way to maintain a clean environment is to ensure that garbage is dropped in their respective bins and not on the streets. This may seem obvious, but sadly, is not so, for lack of civic sense sometimes stems from lack of garbage bins in the city itself.


Observation:

Garbage disposal has always been a problem, not only at an individual level, but also at the level of governments. Ensuring that people do not litter the streets is possible only when sufficient grabage disposal units are provided at every other corner. But providing these big bins alone does not solve the problem. Collecting the garbage from the bins / emptying them into larger containers and more importantly, handling the potential issue of the bin itself being stolen overnight is something that requires lot of thinking. Paris (France) has done a beautiful job in tackling this problem. This post details how this has been done.


Suggestion:

The solution to the problem of garbage disposal is quite simple:

1. Instead of garbage bins, shift to garbage bags hanging from circular holders (see picture). These would be large transparent polythene bags, that are sturdy enough to hold few kilograms of garbage.

2. Ensure that the city is liberally sprinkled with garbage bags, one every 50 mts.

3. Garbage collection is made extremely simple with this design, for the bags simply need to be dumped in the trucks without the added task of emptying the bins. A new garbage bag can then be placed in the holder. This also reduces the accidental spillage of garbage from the bins that may take place when the bin is being emptied.

4. Transparent bags provide easy visibility to the contents inside. Apparently, this model was adopted in Paris after a bomb scare in the garbage cans. Transparent garbage bags also overcome the potential problem of bombs / undesirable objects being hidden inside.

5. Last, but not the least, these garbage bags hardly require much investment or infrastructure. Placing them liberally all across the town / city would instead bring down the additional cost that would otherwise be incurred in keeping the city clean.


Garbage bags thus seem a sure-shot way to clean up the city automatically, develop civic sense in people, make garbage collection a far easier job and also bring down the cost of keeping the city clean. So, go ahead and spread this idea in your own city and make it clean!

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Log and Garden-Spade Benches


This post is inspired by my recent visit to the "Tulip Gardens - Keukenhof" in The Netherlands, and motivation by a dear friend who suggested that I re-start my blog after a long hiatus. So, here is a design for a seating facility that is simple, yet so creative, and blends really well with the surroundings.


Who doesn't like to sit in the garden and bask in the Sun? Not many of us have that kind of luxury. But for those who do have, this design is really simple, very friendly (no use of plastics), innovative and at the same time, blends very well with the backdrop of a nice, small garden / park. The log of the bench can be that of an old tree that has practically reached the end of its life cycle, and the back-rest of the bench can be made out of the three-pronged garden spades, with the prongs fixed to the log, and the handle serving as the back-rest (see picture) . The spades sticking on to the log gives a rustic, rural feel to the entire design. The seats are not only easy to make but as the spade handles are well rounded, they are safe for children as well.


To sum, small gardens / parks can easily be equipped with log benches that not only serve the purpose well, but employ a design that is creative, stylish, simple and also extremely practical.