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29 March 2024

Are garbage chutes a convenience or menace?

Published
By Majorie van Leijen

The residents of apartment 3106 were warned when they decided to take the apartment. "This apartment is right next to the garbage chute," had the real estate broker told Maria Kearney, the British new resident of a building in Tecom.

Indeed, the chute is the first thing you see when you open the door of the apartment. There is no door, or hall leading to it. The metal handle is the only thing that separates the garbage chute from Maria's doorstep.

"Luckily, there is not really a smell coming from this chute. Maybe this is because I live on the 31st floor, which is quite far from the actual garbage belt. But I do hear every single item that is thrown down the chute," Maria says.

For Thom Grainger, who lives in the same corner of the same building, but on the 15th floor, the experience of living next to the chute is different.

"You have to imagine! On the 15th floor you hear the trash coming down of all the residents that live on floor 16 and above. This building has 34 floors, it is a constant noise!"

The building management has recently put up notices saying: "Due to several complaints from the tenants about constant disturbances especially in the late hours, for tenants convenience we decided to lock the garbage chute at 9.00pm until 8.00am.

"This is new. It used to say that we are not suppose to thrown down garbage down the chute. But now it is locked. I think people did not really follow the previous instructions," says Maria.

In Karama, most buildings do not exceed 10 floors, so a constant noise is something most residents do not have to worry about. However, a visit to a 5-storey building in this area demonstrates that residents of low-rise buildings have other problems to deal with.

Not only from the first apartment door, but within a 10 metres range of the garbage chute the intrusive smell of garbage fills the hallway. The chute is located in a separate room, which can be closed with a door. However, at the time of visit, the door was open.

"Often people do not throw garbage in the chute. They just place it in front of the chute, which probably makes the smell much worse," says M.G., a Filipina living in an apartment in Karama.

A notice in the garbage room of one of the apartments says: "Please throw garbage in the chute." However, a trace of left-behind garbage on the floor proves that this instruction is not always followed.

A third option for the disposal of residential garbage is having no garbage chute at all. In many of the older buildings, residents are required to go the old-fashioned way: walking your bag of garbage down the road, to the nearest garbage belt.

Considering the menace of garbage chutes near apartments, the outdoor garbage belt may not be such a bad idea after all. But location is imperative.

"The garbage belt is located right in front of our building. The smell fills the entire street. And it looks very bad too," complains TK., an Indian resident living in Karama.

"It is convenient in that I do not have to walk far. But whoever put these containers here could have put a little effort into moving them at least a few metres away, where no buildings are."

[Image via Shutterstock]