Chapter 51

They were only a dozen steps outside of the office, so they went back inside where Henry and the girls were still in the meeting room.

They were doing just what Mark was going to do, looking up New York City’s trash situation!

Internet search results revealed that (DSNY) New York Department of Sanitation’s budget was over $2 billion per year to manage over 14 million tonnes of garbage, with some of it even being shipped overseas for processing.

Jacob had a huge smile on his face; this was exactly what his invention was built for. It could save that city a lot of money and make a significant positive impact on the planet.

The request was submitted by the Commissioner of Sanitation indicating that they were interested in 50 units as a test, 40 hopper units to upgrade existing trucks and then 10 collection bins, and then they wanted to look at building a conversion facility in the future.

Mark then asked the question, “How easy is it to re-assign the teleport destination for existing collection bins?”

Jacob informed them, “It’s actually automatic, if the owner ID has a conversion facility, all bins they own will automatically redirect to it.”

Mark then decided to throw a curveball, “What if a big city like New York decides to build multiple conversion facilities?”

Jacob said, “Why would they want to do that? One facility could easily handle all their trash.”

“True, but many large cities are not very traffic friendly for transporting bulk materials. They may want multiple conversion facilities outside the city limits to reduce traffic.”

Jacob, Henry and the girls thought about how that might work, but before they solved that conundrum, Mark smiled and threw another quirk into the mix, “Here’s another scenario to consider! What if New York City pays for the collection bins, but then multiple private companies build the conversion facilities and just contract themselves to the city? Company A has a contract for 1 million tonnes, Company B has a contract for 2 million tonnes ... or maybe an actual manufacturer builds their own conversion facility to completely eliminate the need to truck raw materials in?”

Everybody realized those were scenarios no one had even considered.

Jacob said, “The system isn’t designed to work that way, a customer could log into each individual collection bin and assign the destination facility of their choice, but the bins themselves can’t redirect to multiple facilities.”

Mark then got an idea and had a big grin... “Maybe they can!”

Everyone looked at him, wondering what ingenious idea he had just come up with, as he stood up and started walking around. “What if ALL collection bins teleport to the moon factory and then the conversion facilities just withdraw the amount they need from there? That configuration will keep both businesses completely independent and capable of handling any scenario!”

Jacob shook his head. “We don’t want to risk too much off-world matter transfer, that could offset the orbit of either the planet or the moon. Matter, for the most part, needs to stay where it came from.”

Mark said, “So instead of the moon we use Atlantis?”

“That could work for a while, but again you don’t want to pool too much matter in any one location. We really should make it mandatory that any city over a certain size needs to have at least one conversion facility. Maybe not immediately, but say within six sectares or a yahren. Ideally it would be nice if the bins could just teleport matter to the nearest facility, regardless of who owns it, that would keep the matter distributed closer to source than anything.”

Henry said, “Maybe we should have come up with two companies ... one for the collection business and one for the conversion business?”

Mark said, “I guess that is an option, but I think they can all still be Atlantis Recycling, just have a Collection Division and a Conversion Division.”

The girls suggested they could edit the home page to more or less be a landing page and then each division could be its own site.

Henry said, “Sounds good, make the changes! Good thing we are dealing with this now and not having to restructure months or years down the road. Sorry, sectares or yahren, I’m still getting used to working with the new terms.”

Annabelle then added, “Yes, and I think we should do two announcements, maybe we do one now, just for the collection bins, and then do another later when we have a conversion site we can demonstrate.”

Mark said, “Do we have a collection bin that we can use for the demo?”

Jacob said, “I have not set up one on Atlantis yet, but before we can demonstrate the collection bin, we need at least one conversion centre or at least a matter storage facility.”

Cricket said, “We can store matter in the base of the island since it’s not solid, but I agree with Jacob. Matter should be distributed evenly around the planet. I’m not even sure if it’s possible, but you know how much an unbalanced tire shakes—we don’t want to unbalance the planet.”

Mark said, “We’ll temporarily teleport all matter into the base of Atlantis since it’s not solid anyway, but then once other conversion facilities get setup we can come up with a matter distribution plan. Setup a bin with just the Atlantis Recycling logo and colours and we’ll do the segment behind the office. Maybe if we can find a box to demonstrate a garbage truck hopper unit also. Then we just need to find some trash for the demo!

Since we don’t really have trash, I’m thinking we could visit one of the nearby shops and get a couple of their shopping bags, then we can collect some trash in the park by asking people to put their garbage in our bag instead of the recycle bins. Once we have a few bags full we can go to the collection bin and record the demonstration.”

Jacob said, “I’ve got both construx here, we just need somewhere to put them, and by default they already have our colour scheme and logo ... even the hopper units.”

Annabelle said, “We’ll get some bags and go collect some trash.”

Mark and Annabelle walked towards the west bridge, since there was a convenience store on the corner beside the path. They walked inside and the store owner was surprised that the King and Queen were visiting his shop, as he introduced himself as Sharam and asked if there was anything he could help them find.

Annabelle outright asked, “We are actually looking for bags to collect garbage in, we’re launching a new garbage recycling business and we need some garbage to do a demonstration.”

The shopkeeper was disappointed that they weren’t actually looking to buy anything, but then an idea dawned on him, “So you just want some trash for your demonstration right and it’s going to be a video that’s broadcast everywhere?”

“That’s right!”

“I have a deal for you then! I have some stock in storage on the roof that I haven’t unpacked yet. What if I unpack some of it and you can have all the trash, it’s mainly cardboard, plastic, styrofoam and pallets. Then I can give you some bags with my business name on them that you can stuff with the garbage and indirectly advertise my business.”

Annabelle smiled, “How about this instead! How would you like to be in our demonstration video? Rather than just staging it behind the office, we could put the bin on your roof and we can record you putting the trash into the bin?”

“I will be on video? Do I have to say anything?”

Annabelle smiled, “No, I’ll be talking to the inventor of the bins as he will be explaining the recycling process. Your apron has the name of your business and do you have signage on your roof?”

Jacob then walked into the shop, since he saw where they had gone.

When Annabelle saw Jacob, “New plan Jacob, let’s setup the collection bin here and Sharam will have garbage when he unpacks his stock, including pallets.”

Jacob then pulled out a construx and said, “Where do you want it?”

They went to the roof, where Sharam, Mark and Jacob unpacked a couple of pallets of product. They were wrapped in plastic and then the boxes contained multiple smaller boxes for sale, then a couple of the toys had styrofoam packing inside them and one box, with fragile contents, had foam packing peanuts inside. Then once those were unpacked, there were two pallets to dispose of.

By the time they finished unpacking, Liyana was there with her AFNN camera.

Liyana started by introducing Queen Annabelle, who then introduced Jacob and the new company.

They recorded placing the construx device and creating the collection bin and then he explained how the system worked.

All the while Mark and Sharam were tossing garbage into the bin and the camera caught the garbage as it appeared to turn black and fall apart, leaving the bin empty, clean, odour-free and ready for more garbage.

Once the segment was done, the AFNN crew on Atlanterra edited the clip down to be a nice 30 second promo video and sent it back. They thanked Sharam for the use of his shop and Jacob paid him 100 credits, which made Sharam really happy.

They then put that clip on the both the Atlantis Recycling website and the Atlantis website and made a press release about the new business.

They then sat down and made a call to the DSNY Commissioner to discuss the order. They had just seen the demonstration video and asked if there was a demonstration video for converting trucks?

At the end of the call, it had been decided that they were going to quickly fly over and convert one garbage truck for free, and then record it as the demonstration video, since there were no garbage trucks on Atlantis.

Mark messaged Maren that they were going to take a quick trip to New York City and that they would be back at the palace within 30 centons.

Cricket said, “I’m shipping down the New York order. I know they haven’t paid for them yet, but you might as well have them with you if you’re going to be meeting with them.”

“Good idea, thanks!”

Mark then informed everyone that the 50 units were being shipped down so they could deliver them at the meeting.

They were all waiting on the landing pad when the delivery drone dropped off the small crate containing the 50 collection bin construx. The crate was only about the size of a full-size suitcase.

They boarded the shuttle and within the centar they were approaching the address provided by the DSNY commissioner, and were landing in their yard which contained hundreds of garbage trucks.

They transferred the funds for the 50 units and Jacob installed one hopper conversion unit in each different style of truck, figuring they may as well demonstrate as many scenarios as possible.

Then they recorded the maintenance staff themselves doing the conversions.

The group then returned to Atlantis with the promise to follow up the next day after the converted trucks were used on routes.

After returning to Atlantis in the late afternoon, Jacob excused himself to begin moving stuff into his new home, as Mark and Annabelle relaxed in one of the parks until the gang joined them for supper at the pavilion.

Mark woke up the next morning and went through his usual routine and reports then, when everyone was up, they would walk to the pavilion for breakfast.

Just as the group sat down with their breakfasts, Cass joined them.

Apparently Beth had spent the night at Eric’s place and Jacob is now moved into his new home.

Annabelle teased Cass, “So, when are you going to tell Jacob how you feel about him?”

Cass was shocked. “I’m going to kill Beth, she wasn’t supposed to tell anybody.”

Annabelle laughed. “Beth didn’t tell us, everyone could see it yesterday at breakfast.”

“Really? It was that noticeable? Why hasn’t Jacob noticed then?”

Mark said, “Jacob has a lot on his mind right now with the new business, plus his new house. Once he relaxes he might take notice.”

Annabelle laughed, then said, “He’s a nerd, like Mark was. He’ll be oblivious to your attraction and won’t make the first move anyway. You’ll probably need to back him into a corner, rip down his pants and give him a blowjob for him to get the picture. At least that’s what I did with Mark!”

“Yeah that’s what Beth said too, well not the blow job part, but that I’d have to make the first move, but I’m not going to take blowjob off the table!”

Mark laughed, “In defence of most guys, we don’t recognize subtle hints very well, we pretty much need flashing neon signs and loudspeakers to take notice, but getting a blowjob definitely grabs our attention as well!”

That made pretty much everyone at the table laugh.

After breakfast they walked back over to the office, where Jacob and Henry were in the meeting room looking at the stats from the collection bins, they both had big smiles on their faces.

Mark cleared his throat to get their attention, as the men then turned around and invited the trio into the meeting room, Beth also saw them at that point and joined them as they entered.

They had just finished a call with the DSNY Commissioner, the new devices weren’t even on routes yet, but they had setup a couple of the dumpsters in the yard so trucks could offload and they were working out so well that they increased the order to 2,400 hoppers and 1,000 bins. The garbage trucks with the recycling units were significantly more efficient than the old trucks. They never filled up, so they never needed to unload and because they never stored any garbage, the trucks used considerably less fuel.

The bins they had distributed to a few of the transfer stations, where traditional trucks were dumping into those instead of into the compactors.

They were going to convert every garbage truck, but they were also going to use the bins at the transfer stations to collect refuse coming in from the other sources and from trucks that hadn’t been converted yet. Once they no longer needed the transfer stations, they would move the bins to other locations.

Mark looked at the statistics on the display and, with New York being 3 centares behind Atlantis, they had just barely started their first workday and they had already collected thousands of tonnes of garbage with only 50 collection devices, the collection bins handling significantly more trash than the individual hopper units.

Cricket then notified Mark of a news broadcast of interest that had just started, so Mark told everyone to watch.

Cricket brought up a video feed from a news station where the DSNY Commissioner was holding a press conference about their decision to switch to Atlantis Recycling to handle the city’s garbage and that the technology would save the city over one billion dollars in the first year alone. They even had one of their trucks handy to demonstrate the technology.

When the reporter asked the Commissioner where the garbage went, they were told that it was sent to a factory that Atlantis had built, but that they would soon be setting up their own factory.

When asked what the Atlanteans were going to do with all that matter, they said it was explained on the Atlantis Recycling website, but they were going to build facilities around the world where companies will be able to purchase various raw materials that will be created from the garbage material.