Garbage Chutes: Options, Prices, Designs, And More

There are many reasons why garbage chutes are a great option for both residential and commercial buildings. Hotels, dormitories, and apartment buildings are some of the most common buildings that feature garbage and recycling chutes.

Garbage chutes can include various options and accessories, such as compactors, cleaning systems, odor control accessories, and more. Depending upon your chute needs, they can be constructed from different materials and different designs.

Garbage Chute Designs

During the design phase of a building featuring a garbage chute, it’s crucial to consider how materials flow through the building. Understanding this is the key to planning for efficient waste management. Depending upon the building’s needs, you may want to consider either an external or internal garbage chute. Each of these options has different benefits and drawbacks.

• External Garbage Chutes: External trash chutes work well for mid-and high-rise buildings or during construction projects. They are often made from heavy-duty plastic or steel to be able to withstand even large debris. External garbage chutes can be a permanent fixture or work as a temporary solution. They can be customized and affixed to keep the chute from the façade of the building.
• Internal Garbage Chutes: Internal garbage chutes are a great way to move waste products efficiently in large buildings. These chutes can often come with many accessories to make them aesthetically appealing, durable, and easy-to-clean. The sleek design of internal garbage chutes ensures that trash doesn’t get caught in the door hinges or become jammed in the chute. There two primary types of internal garbage chutes:
  • Garbage Chutes: These classic chutes are standard in apartment buildings and look fantastic with minimal maintenance requirements. They can come with accessories that minimize odor and noise for maximum resident and employee comfort.
  • Recycling Chutes: Recycling chutes are often combined with garbage chutes to offer a duo or trio. Taken together, these chutes efficiently sort household or workplace waste.

Whether you are considering an internal or external garbage chute, it’s essential to understand all design elements. The experts at SBI Contracting can help you determine the best path to meet your building’s needs.

Garbage Chute Options

Garbage chutes can come with many accessories that make using, cleaning, and maintaining the chute easier for owners, residents, and employees. An overview of common accessories include:

• Trash Compactors: Many automatic, chute-fed trash compactors can be fitted to work with your garbage chute. These compactors work to reduce the volume of trash. Reducing volume can be a crucial aspect of waste management for many large buildings. Compactor options include those that minimize noise, enhance safety, and meet waste management standards.
• Chute Doors (Intake): The intake doors of garbage chutes can be made to meet any dimension, and many standard options are available. They can feature hinges on the bottom, top, left, or right side of the door. Trash chute intake doors can be ADA-compliant or foot-operated. Some options have an electrical interlock system. This system can ensure only one door is open at a time, bypassing malfunctioning doors.
• Chute Doors (Discharge): The National Fire Protection Association requires discharge doors to be held open with a 165-degree fusible link. This safety feature ensures that the link melts when it reaches 165 degrees. This process seals the chute to prevent the fire from using it to travel through the building. These doors are ideal for internal garbage chutes in high-rise apartments, hotels, hospitals, condominiums, and nursing homes. Discharge doors come in horizontal and vertical options and many different sizes.
• Handles/Latches: Many handles can be installed on both intake and discharge garbage chute doors. Building owners can install those that lock or have a trigger handle.
• Odor Control: One of the biggest concerns with an internal garbage chute is the odor. Trash is stinky. But odor control systems can work automatically between cleanings to minimize odors and ensure they do not permeate the building. These odor control systems work by killing the unhealthy bacteria found on trash that causes the odor. This type of cleaning ensures that the odor is resolved, not merely masked. Automatic Cleaning Systems: Trash isn’t only stinky; it’s usually dirty. Automatic cleaning systems allow you to set a timer that cleans the system on a set interval. This process can happen as frequently as you would like to ensure that your garbage chute meets any hygienic standards you have.
• Noise Dampening Systems: In many metro areas, the cost of real estate is astronomical, meaning that every useable square foot comes at a premium. This may mean that your garbage chute is close enough to living spaces that residents can hear it to maximize cost-efficiency. Minimizing sound can be accomplished by providing a sound coating or including pads or isolators. There are options to meet any noise standards you may have.

While these are common trash chute accessories, building designers and owners may want to incorporate other design elements or features. Examples include in-chute sprinkler heads, closers, night latches, and trims.

Garbage Chute Costs

Trash chutes are generally not a standard feature of most modern buildings, which leads to the perception that they are costly. However, garbage chutes are a cost-effective way to ensure that trash is disposed of properly. And depending upon your system, they can even reduce the disposal costs for some buildings. In areas with high population density, garbage chutes lessen the amount of bulk waste from buildings. They also reduce the environmental effects of excessive trash.

The professional staff at SBI Contracting can help you decide if you are better off with an internal or external cute. We can also help provide you with an understanding of the different accessories and their benefits. Our experts are factory-trained to install all products from Chutes International. We can even help service existing chutes that we didn’t install, no matter the vendor.

To find out more about how our team can help you with your garbage chute needs, give us a call today!