The best way to keep streets clean is not to dirty them in the first place, so BINLESS STREETS are ideal. Wastes collected at the doorstep in handcarts, tricycles or auto-rickshaws should ideally go straight into a decentralised composting BIO-BIN to avoid further SECONDARY TRANSPORT to a more distant waste-processing and disposal site. This is the most cost-effective option. Two other ways to have binless streets are to transfer doorstep-collected waste from smaller Primary-Transport vehicles directly into a larger waiting vehicle for UNMIXED onward Secondary Transport. This requires careful planning and punctual and regular fleet management.

A much easier and very effective option especially for small towns is to collect doorstep waste directly into Secondary Transport vehicles stopping briefly at short distances or street corners, as in Nasik or Suryapet. These must have separate sections for Wet and Dry waste to ensure segregated transport right upto a nearby waste-processing and disposal site.

TRANSFER STATIONS make sense only if processing and disposal sites are over 20 km away, making travel time for small vehicles unviable. Ground-level transfer stations, like that designed by Onyx in a Chennai (Madras) fleet workshop, are most cost- and space-saving. Small tipper autos etc unload waste into a trough from which a rotating grab crane on rails lifts it into large 20-tonner vehicles waiting on a parallel track. Such an option allows for easy change of location of the transfer station if needed. Other elevated Transfer Stations provide for the small Primary-Transport vehicles to drive up a long ramp with and drop their load through a chute into the top of a large Secondary-Collection truck. This is often messy, and requires huge space and expense to construct a long ramp with gradual slope for small loaded vehicles to drive up easily.