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You're listening to Part-Time Genius, a production of kaleidoscope and IHeart Radio.

Guess what, Mary?

What's that, Mango?

Do you know there are around 200 cities on Earth that have trash flying underneath them at speeds of up to 43 miles per hour.

What?

I know. It sounds totally bizarre, but it is a very real innovation. It's called a pneumatic waste

collection system. And they've been installed in cities all over the world. Stockholm, Seoul,

Singapore, Dubai. Even Disney World uses one.

Ah, yes, of course, Disney World, one of my favorite cities. So wait, so how does this work exactly?

So the systems have these above-ground waste inlets, which kind of look like pipes or mailboxes,

but with round doors that people open to insert trash. And there are

separate ones for recyclables as well. But when an inlet gets full, a trapdoor releases its contents

into underground pipes. And the trash gets sucked through the pneumatic tubes to a waste station

thanks to the force of these spinning industrial fans. Isn't that incredible?

It's also a very whimsical way to deal with garbage. It also feels like the future. And this tech is

actually good for the environment. The company that first built these tubes, NVAC, claims that the

system can lower the distance driven by garbage trucks by 90%. And this, of course, reduces

air pollution, diesel emissions, and hardest of all, especially if you live in a place like New York

City, local traffic, which gets slowed down tremendously by these trucks. According to locals

in Bergen, Norway, which began building a pneumatic waste collection system in 2007,

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