Portugal - going underground

The underground storage of waste and/or recyclable materials has many up-sides. It massively improves the urban environment by making waste a subject that is 'out of sight' - waste containers are hard to make 'pretty'. It also reduces smell, wind-blown litter and the opportunities for vandalism - and being 'fixed' and underground, accidental damage is also reduced.Unfortunately, underground systems can be expensive to install, complex to operate and time consuming to empty. In these challenging times, the key to wider adoption of underground systems has to be 'simplicity' - which is what the word 'Sotkon' could well mean in Portuguese.The Sotkon system utilises a pre-made underground 'bunker' which allows for easy site excavation and installation. A single, heavy duty 'trap door' covers the container. This is opened electric/hydraulically by the collection operative using a remote control handset. The waste containers can be made of metal if required, but Sotkon has developed a range of rubberised plastic containers that enable emptying without the noise associated with metal units - thus allowing late night, or early morning collections.Even the collection system offers some unique ideas;- the containers - which are primarily designed for recyclables such as cans, bottles, paper - are lifted out of the bunker, raised and rotated and emptied into a normal refuse collection vehicle hopper (although a non-compaction hooklift container truck could be used) by a lorry loader crane. In most applications, this would be PTO/hydraulically powered, but Sotkon has also developed an electrically powered version for nightshift working.View company website