Several metres underground in a mature HDB estate in Jurong East, rubbish bags are sucked into pipes at high speed and transported to a collection centre farther away, where they are compacted and sealed in containers.

With a promise to minimise the manpower needed to clear refuse chutes as well as pests and odours, such pneumatic waste conveyance systems were first rolled out at 38 HDB blocks in Yuhua in 2015. The idea was that this trial could one day be implemented on a larger scale.