BACKGROUND:
Over the past decade, numerous mining accidents have happened in China due to excessive exploitation. This not only causes a huge loss of human life and property, but also leads to serious damages to the local economic and ecological development. Hence, it is important and essential to start improvement of mining facilities, mining site environment and local land geology in order to avoid further disasters in mining sites in China.
Meanwhile, China produces nearly one billion tons of waste every year. That includes around 400 million tons of household waste, 500 million tons of construction waste and 10 million tons of food waste. Moreover, this number is growing at a rate of 5% -8% every year. This huge amount of waste takes up a lot of land resources and causes pollution to the urban environment, and also affects people's daily life.
IDEA:
"Super Beetle" is a waste disposal centre that is located on top of an abandoned mine. It consists of a base and a main support structure, a central integrated processing workshop in the middle, and a wind power generator and rainwater collection facilities on the top. "Super Beetle" waste disposal process includes waste sorting, incineration, pulverization and innocent treatment. The remaining waste will be mixed with water and poured into abandoned mines. After a process of dewatering, drying, tamping and compaction, the injected mixed waster slurry can fill up empty abandoned mine. This will restore the land with the original structure restore tectonic stress.
"Super Beetle" is an innovative solution for the challenges created by a need of land for waste disposal and backfill soil required for mine post exploitation. It not only effectively resolves health and safety problems that these two challenges may cause, but also contributes to environment sustainability by recycling and reuse of waste. "Super Beetle" also demonstrates new design thinking and pathways for sustainable eco-design.