"Chute For the Stars" when Recycling in Condominiums, Stratas, and HOAs: Dealing with Garbage Chute Jams & Proper Waste Disposal

There are some problems that affect all buildings alike, and there are others that affect only some. Today’s blog is about a problem that many tall high-rise buildings experience, so if you live in building, perhaps you are in luck as we're about to learn about recycling in condominiums, stratas, and HOAs.

As you can imagine, in a high-rise condominium / strata, residents produce a startling amount of garbage and recycling. A common solution to deal with this amount of garbage is a garbage chute system with access via a refuse room on each level.

At the very bottom the chute shaft all that garbage and recycling is separated by pressing the appropriate buttons before throwing down the waste.

These systems are really easy to use and are very convenient for residents. Nonetheless, if not used properly, these systems can get blocked, causing all kinds of problems to residents and condo management alike.

Check out this quick guide to understand better how chute systems work and what to avoid to make sure they don’t get blocked.

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Recycling in Condominiums, Stratas, and HOAs:

Garbage Chute Jams: How they work and how to keep them working

How do recycling and garbage chutes work?

Chutes are in common use in tall buildings to allow the rapid transport of items from the upper floors to a central location on one of the lower floors, especially the basement. Garbage chutes are common in high-rise apartment buildings and are used to collect all the building's garbage in one place.

Often the bottom end of the chute is placed directly above a large, open waste container, at times this also includes a mechanical compactor. What separates the different types of garbage is called a Tri-sorter and it does this with a shifting motorized metal plate.

After being property sorted by the Tri-sorter, the recycling waste piles into a bin after coming down the chute. Some buildings may have a compactor which compresses the waste to make disposal more efficient. The compactors use a sensor to activate and start crushing garbage, similar to the ones used with the overhead garage doors. Something moves in front of the sensor and the compactor starts and won’t stop under there isn’t anything left in front of it.

WARNING: Not all recycling should be thrown down the chute!

In our many years of experience in the condo industry, we have faced hundreds of situations with residents putting inappropriate items down the garbage chute.

We know that some of you are asking, how big of a deal can it possibly be?

Well, the answer is pretty BIG.

Actually., in our experience, the items coming down the shaft have been everything but the Kitchen sink and that includes the counter top.

We have seen…

• Solid furniture items such as chairs, desks and full shelving units. 

• Household items such as curtain rods and blinds. 

• Renovation materials such as flooring, tile, drywall, wood, metal and granite. 

• We get a lot of carpets (not just small bathroom rugs mind you, full sized area rugs and ripped up bedroom carpet) and bedding.

In fact, one of our collaborators, Angel-Marie Reiner (President of Onyx) recently published a post on LinkedIn asking Condoland to chime in on what the craziest thing they've seen go down the chute is!

Results included:

• Mattresses.

• A mannequin.

• A car tire.

• A 25lb dumbell that destroyed the chute.

• A slaughtered lamb.

• A Christmas tree.

• A person trying to escape police.

• And an even wilder one (check the post!)!

Items like these are not meant for a waste removal system like the ones found in condominiums, stratas, and HOAs. They damage the chute, get caught on the shifting motorized plate, get lodged and act like a shelf, holding up any other refuse that falls on top of it.

It damages the compactor because they are not designed to crush metal, wood or stone, forcing condo management to call in a vendor to take care of the problem, increasing maintenance costs for everyone. It can even lead to unpleasant smells wafting throughout the building and into your suite, after all, it's waste and recycling accumulating one on top of the other until someone can clear it. Ewww!

Out of everything mentioned, cardboard remains the Tri-sorters’ and Compactors’ Achilles heel.

Take IKEA boxes for example. These boxes are big. Really big. It doesn’t matter if you manage to fold it enough to get it into the opening. Once you let it go, it unfolds inside the chute which makes it nearly impossible for it to reach the bottom. If it does make it, it must get past a bend at the bottom of the shaft, past the tri-sorting plate and into a bin.

Cardboard is large recycling; it isn’t meant to go into the compactor yet it is the most common item to cause a garbage jam - so be sure to check with your building's management about how you can recycle large items such as these.

Why is a chute jam so terrible?

Negative pressure (air/wind) goes up the compactor, up the shaft and exits at the roof through a stack. If garbage is stuck, the air still pushes past it and brings the smell of all that collected refuse, with it. That is the number one cause of garbage smells on the residential floors when they occur.

1. When the Garbage chute is blocked, nothing coming down at that point is separated. Because it is stuck above the sorting system. At that point, it doesn’t matter a resident presses one of the buttons, the recycling or refuse will simply land on top of what is already stuck.
   

2. Having that much weight or any of the above-mentioned items can cause damage to the Tri-sorter and compactor. Which accrue costs for repair and can disrupt the building’s waste disposal. When major repairs need to be undertaken, the garbage refuse rooms on each floor and the garbage room must be closed and all recycling and waste need to be brought down to an alternate area provided.

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Keeping the garbage chute in good working order is imperative to safe and convenient condo living, and the consequences of not doing so may extend beyond inconvenience and into chargebacks if the corporation can track down the offending resident.

Like everything in a condominium, strata, or HOA, the chute system is interconnected, and so are its residents. The actions of any resident can end up affecting the whole condo.

Our daily routines influence the lives of people - Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

When disposing of normal and recycling waste, residents should keep this in mind and follow condo management recommendations regarding waste disposal. Cleanliness and proper sanitation practices are necessary when you live in a condominium.

If everyone does their part, the whole community benefits- so reuse, reduce, and recycle responsibly!

-Stratastic

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