Waste Container Inlet Mask and Inward Door for Hygienic Sorting
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing waste collection containers face user discomfort and effort during waste deposition, lack of hygiene near the waste opening, and ineffective differentiation of waste types due to uniform access openings and complex recognition and weighing systems, leading to increased costs without improved service quality.
Innovation Solution
A container design with a door that rotates horizontally to open and close, a fixed mask with shaped mouths for specific waste types, and a mask that remains fixed to the containment body, minimizing user effort and ensuring hygiene by keeping the door internal to the compartment during waste introduction, while optimizing waste distribution.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a door movably connected by hinges is used to open and close the top opening, then the container allows waste delivery, but the user experiences discomfort and effort during operation
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of rotating the door outward on external hinges, the door is designed to rotate inward on internal hinges, reversing the conventional door opening direction. This inversion allows the door to swing into the collection compartment rather than outward, eliminating the need for users to lift and maneuver heavy doors externally, thereby reducing user effort and discomfort while maintaining waste delivery functionality
2Ease of operation
If the door opens outward by rotating on hinges, then access is provided, but hygiene is compromised as the door contacts the external environment
Solution Approach 1:
The door opening direction is inverted to swing inward into the collection compartment rather than outward to the external environment. This ensures the door surface remains confined within the hygienic boundary of the container, preventing contamination from external contact while still providing full access to the collection compartment for waste delivery
Solution Approach 2:
The collection compartment acts as an intermediary space that receives the door when it opens inward. By designing the compartment volume and shape to accommodate the door's inward rotation, the system allows the door to access the compartment without exposing its external surface to contaminants, maintaining hygiene while enabling operation
3Reliability
If recognition means and electronic weighing devices are added to containers, then waste delivery can be monitored and user behavior verified, but device complexity and costs increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The complex electronic recognition and weighing systems are extracted from the container structure itself and relocated to the collection compartment or external monitoring systems. This extraction simplifies the container design by removing invasive electronic components while maintaining waste delivery verification capabilities through alternative, less complex means such as mask-based waste type identification and centralized weighing
4Ease of manufacture
If uniform access openings are used for all waste types, then container design is simplified, but waste differentiation effectiveness is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The mask component is designed with locally differentiated features - each mouth is specifically shaped and sized for particular waste types (circular for bottles, rectangular for containers, square for jars). This local quality variation in the mask's mouth configurations enables effective waste differentiation while keeping the overall container structure simple and uniform, resolving the contradiction between design simplicity and differentiation effectiveness
Data Source
AI summary
A container for waste collection includes: a containment body having a collection compartment and a top opening for delivering waste into the collection compartment; a door movably connected to the containment body for selectively opening or closing the opening; a mask interposed between the collection compartment and the door when the door is in a first operating condition in which it closes the opening, the mask having at least one mouth for delivering waste into the collection compartment. The mask is permanently fixed to the containment body so that it defines a slit between an upper edge of the mask and the containment body, the slit being adapted to permit the passage of the door, wherein the door is constrained to the containment body by an actuator that allows the door to alternately switch from a first operating condition in which it closes the load opening to a second operating condition in which it opens the load opening.