Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic situation makes us to rethinking the urban renewal possibilities for integration of the automatic-waste-collection-systems (AWCS) as a main part of the infrastructural layer in the old city cores, especially for their integration at the public areas and facilities, that need to operate before and in the most cases during the pandemic situation. The main object of this paper is to inform the decision-makers, that with the reducing of the transport of waste by trucks, and collecting the waste with containers inside the old city cores and around and inside the public facilities, we could improve prevention for the dispersion of the viruses in an eventually new pandemic situation. Providing safer public services is a highly important subject especially for the medical, educational, or any other public facilities that will have a need for active operating during that period. For those interventions which include a new street underground installation and the new waste station locations and the Incinerators the process of renewing the existing urban planning documentation or separate infrastructural urban planning documentation will be needed as a part of the new cities' infrastructural city layers. The method of collecting and disposing of the municipality's solid waste (MSW) with trucks and containers at existing landfills, in the future could not be presented as the only and most valuable choice of waste transport for any cities, especially in a pandemic situation. Today's in many old city cores and around any public areas the waste collection and transport is carried out mostly by a large fleet of trucks that collect MSW from thousands of collection points. In addition to cost savings, pneumatic waste management systems and environmental benefits the new benefit is that without waste collection by trucks circling and fewer fuel emissions, less traffic around and inside the public facilities will be fewer possibilities for spreading the diseases with open containers or truck as a physical carrier of wastes especially in the old city core as high-density zones and the urban city blocks with public facilities. This research includes presenting of existing integrated AWCS system in the public areas and facilities as the Case Studies. The purpose of this research is to provide enough scientific aspects for making the final decision for renewing the existing urban planning documentation for reducing the risk of the disease spreading, with the implementation of higher safety standards, especially for the waste-collecting around and inside the public facilities areas.
