An innovative waste management system has been deployed at Wembley City, which will hoover away all the waste, and encourage recycling.
The system, produced by manufacturer Envac, uses a system of chutes connected to a vacuum to suck waste from locations close to resident's front doors. It's hoped that by making waste disposal convenient that recycling will increase.
Items must be separated into colour-coded containers before they are dropped into the corresponding chutes. The waste will then be sucked through a series of pipes at 70km/h to a central collection point, where it will be picked up twice a day.
The chutes can be up to 2km (1.25 miles) in length, meaning collection points can be located at the edge of estates. The system has been used in more than 30 countries and originated in Sweden in the 1960s.
Quintain's Nick Shattock switched the system on at Wembley City, where 4,200 homes will be served by the system across 85 acres. Shattock said: "Our aim is to make Wembley City a highly advanced new district for London by embedding technologies that won't be found on other schemes for around five years."
Julian Gaylor, a director of Envac, told the BBC it was often difficult for people living on estates to recycle. "You can't put boxes and bins in people's flats. What we do is provide an inlet very, very close to where they live and make it very convenient, and that's what makes recycling easier for everybody."
