German-Designed Domestic Underground Storage Elevator System and Garbage Hideaway

If you’ve ever visited Germany you know that they love order, revere engineering, and take pride in keeping tidy homes. As a prime example of this, check out German manufacturer Wöhr’s Underground Waste Lift, which lets you store untidy lawn equipment, garbage and recycling bins, and the odds and ends you don’t want cluttering up your lawn, driveway or garage.

The bi-level solution lets you stop the lift at either of the two levels, of course.

I must say, I’m a sucker for crisp German copy: “The waste bins are sunk underground so that they remain ‘invisible.’ The unit entrance area, the yard as well as the common-use areas are thus not disrupted and can be freely furnished and decorated. The quality of the view and of the living conditions is thus retained if not very much improved.”

As one incidental bonus, storing your garbage underground until pickup day naturally refrigerates it, so “Odour formations and decay processes are slowed down,” the company writes, with Teutonic formality. “Issues with neighbours or lessees? Those are assigned to the past.”

Also amusing is that would-be garbage-sharers are stymied by Wöhr’s key system, so not just anyone can operate the thing. “Access is thus denied to any ‘transgressors’ that are used to discarding or disposing of their waste at the cost of others.” (I assume, however, that you have to give a copy of the key to the garbagemen.)

Conceivably, this could even be integrated into your driveway, depending on what you drive; the Waste Lift is engineered to be driven over by anything weighing up to 2600kg (5,732 pounds).

And while I’m sure it’s fiendishly expensive to install, it’s darn cheap to run. “With a 1.5 kWh power consumption (at a price of 0.30 € per kWh),” the company says, “the cost of each lifting/lowering cycle amounts to approx. 0.003 €.”

I’d be paying a little more, as I’d have fun raising and lowering it for no reason.

Also, I’m really hoping this was invented because some engineer named Klaus had a raccoon problem.

Source: core77