Kerbside waste collection

Needs power

The council lorry: the route by which solid waste leaves the property and becomes somebody else’s problem. Takes the recyclables, the residual waste, and in many communes the organic waste too. Included because it is the boundary of the system, and because a graph that ends at a bin has not actually finished. Also the thing most obviously lost in a disruption, and the reason a household that composts and sorts is less dependent on it than one that does not.

Note: Cost, carbon and footprint are broad judgements against comparable building approaches, not measured figures.

Cost
Low
Upkeep
None
Skill to build
None
Lifespan
Ongoing, for as long as the service runs
Embodied carbon
Medium
Space / material use
Low
Output timing
Continuous process
Skill to repair
None
Regulation (FR example)
Collection and the household waste charge are organised by the commune or the intercommunalité; sorting rules and accepted streams vary between them.

Inputs

Outputs

none

Ranking in its sub-function

Only solution listed for this sub-function, nothing to rank against.

Sources

Tutorials

No build tutorial recorded yet.

What this page does not tell you

No sizing or quantities: how much a technique yields, and how much a household needs, both depend on the build and the people, so the catalogue compares options rather than dimensioning them. It carries no bill of materials and no build sequence, and it is written for an oceanic, clay-soil climate (Normandy, France). Regulatory notes are indicative and need confirming locally.