Cities have long been seen as the antithesis – or, at least, the absence – of nature. Yet in recent years, environmentalists started rethinking their long-held prejudices against urban areas. The rise of neighborhood-based environmental justice movements, beginning in the 1980’s, forced us to confront the human side of pollution and its relationship to urban poverty. The evolution of green building standards and advances in sustainable design helped us imagine an environmentally enlightened future for our offices and homes. The growing number of city-dwellers across the planet may have played the biggest role in our shifting perceptions of cities and nature. Moving “back to the land” and “living off the grid” could never be a tenable option for three and a half billion people. The result would end up closer to an explosion in suburban sprawl than a no-impact return to simpler times. Like it or not, we’ve realized that cities will have to figure into our schemes for a sustainable planet.

One of our biggest and least recognized problems in the U.S. is with our aging sewer infrastructure. The EPA estimates that between $300-500 billion is needed to rehabilitate our infrastructure. The average age of a U.S. pipeline is 76 years and today this is leading to big problems for municipalities. RedZone Robotics is a leading innovator in Robotic Inspection platforms for wastewater infrastructure. They give the tools necessary to make informed and important decisions about a city’s assets so that the limited funds available are used in the right way. RedZone’s robots are able to inspect more feet in less time collecting more detailed and accurate data using Sonar, Laser, H2S gas, digital CCTV, 3D Lidar, V-360, and air temp sensors. The small diameter inspection robot, SOLO, is the world’s first truly unmanned sewer inspection robot and can also be used in environmentally protected areas where big CCTV trucks (most used method for inspection) could not ever go and can be deployed from a vehicle as small as a motorcycle.

President Obama met with RedZone and spoke highly of what the company can do to save municipalities millions and get the job done more efficiently and safely. If critical pipes are not addressed the consequences mean huge structural damages to cities and roadways as well as unimaginable costs in repairs. This company is a small step toward a more efficient and manageable sewer infrastructure, something that we may not realize the importance of but could affect cities on a huge scale.