A chute is a vertical or inclined plane

Inclined plane

The inclined plane is one of the original six simple machines; as the name suggests, it is a flat surface whose endpoints are at different heights. By moving an object up an inclined plane rather than completely vertical, the amount of force required is reduced, at the expense of increasing the...

, channel, or passage through which objects are moved by means of gravity.

Landform

A chute, also known as a race, flume

Flume

A flume is an open artificial water channel, in the form of a gravity chute, that leads water from a diversion dam or weir completely aside a natural flow. Often, the flume is an elevated box structure that follows the natural contours of the land. These have been extensively used in hydraulic...

, or river canyon, is a steep-sided passage through which water flows rapidly.

Akin to these, man-made chutes, such as the timber slide

Timber slide

A timber slide is a device for moving timber past rapids and waterfalls. Their use in Canada was widespread in the 18th and 19th century timber trade. At this time, cut timber would be floated down rivers in large timber rafts from logging camps to ports such as Montreal and Saint John, New...

 and log flume

Log flume

A log flume is a flume specifically constructed to transport lumber and logs down mountainous terrain to a sawmill by using flowing water. These watertight trough-like channels could be built to span a long distance across chasms and down steep mountain slopes...

, were used in the logging

Logging

Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...

 industry to facilitate the downstream transportation of timber along rivers. These are no longer in common use. Man-made chutes may also be a feature of spillway

Spillway

A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of flows from a dam or levee into a downstream area, typically being the river that was dammed. In the UK they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways release floods so that the water does not overtop and damage or even destroy...

s on some dam

Dam

A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...

s. Some types of water supply and irrigation systems are gravity fed, hence chutes. These include aqueduct

Aqueduct

An aqueduct is a water supply or navigable channel constructed to convey water. In modern engineering, the term is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose....

s and acequia

Acequia

An acequia or séquia is a community-operated waterway used in Spain and former Spanish colonies in the Americas for irrigation. Particularly in Spain, the Andes, northern Mexico, and the modern-day American Southwest, acequias are usually historically engineered canals that carry snow runoff or...

s.

Building chute

Chutes are in common use in tall buildings to allow the rapid transport of items from the upper floors to a central location on one of the lower floors or basement. Chutes may be round, square or rectangular at the top and/or the bottom.

• Laundry
  Laundry
  Laundry is a noun that refers to the act of washing clothing and linens, the place where that washing is done, and/or that which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered...
  
   chutes in hotel
  Hotel
  A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
  
  s are placed on each floor to allow the expedient transfer and collection of dirty laundry to the hotel's laundry facility without having to use elevator
  Elevator
  An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
  
  s or stairs. In popular culture
  Popular culture
  Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
  
   stories, laundry chutes are commonly used as means for the protagonist
  Protagonist
  A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
  
   to quickly escape, the laundry at the chute's base often serving to cushion the hero's fall. These chutes are generally aluminized steel and welded together to avoid any extruding parts that may rip or damage the materials.

Home laundry chutes are placed on each floor of multistory home

Home

A home is a place of residence or refuge. When it refers to a building, it is usually a place in which an individual or a family can rest and store personal property. Most modern-day households contain sanitary facilities and a means of preparing food. Animals have their own homes as well, either...

s allow the collection of all household members' dirty laundry to one location, conveniently next to the laundry facilities, without the constant transport of laundry bins from story-to-story or room-to-room or up and down stairs. Home laundry chutes may be less common than previously due to building codes or concern regarding fireblocking, the prevention of fire from spreading from floor-to-floor, as well as child safety. However, construction including cabinets, doors, lids, and locks

Child safety lock

A child safety lock is a special-purpose lock for cabinets, drawers, bottles, etc. that is designed to help prevent children from getting at any dangerous contents. Young children are naturally curious about their surroundings and will always explore, but as they may be unaware of dangerous...

 may make both risks significantly less than with simple stairwells.

• Garbage chutes are common in high-rise apartment buildings and are used to collect all the building's garbage in the one place. Often the bottom end of the chute is placed directly above a large waste receptacle. This makes garbage collection more efficient. However, it must be noted that over the last 10-15 years, the nature of our waste and consequently waste management has changed significantly. These changes (i.e. shortage of landfills, composting of organic waste, segregation of recyclable materials – plastic, paper, glass etc., de-centralised handling of waste) have put those living in apartments with garbage chutes at an unfair disadvantage, due to the absence of tools that facilitate segregation at source. Many cities have found that the use of garbage chutes is emerging as one of the barriers to segregation of waste, resulting in indiscriminate pressure on landfills.

• Mail chute
  Mail chute
  A mail chute is a largely defunct letter collection device used in early multi-story office buildings, hotels, apartment buildings and other high rise structures. Letters were dropped from the upper stories and collected at a central depository by the postal service...
  
  s are used in some buildings to collect the occupants' mail. A notable example is the Asia Insurance Building
  Asia Insurance Building
  The former Asia Insurance Building is a high-rise building formerly for commercial use, located on Finlayson Green near Raffles Place, in Singapore's Downtown Core. The Asia Insurance Building was also known as the A.I...
  
  .

• Escape chutes are used and proposed for use in evacuation of mining equipment and high-rise buildings.

• Construction chutes are used to remove rubble
  Rubble
  Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture. This word is closely connected in derivation with "rubbish", which was formerly also applied to what we now call "rubble". Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as brash...
  
   and similar demolition materials safely from taller buildings. These temporary structures typically consist of a chain of cylindrical or conical plastic tubes, each fitted into the top of the one below and tied together, usually with chain
  Chain
  A chain is a sequence of connected links.Chain may also refer to:Chain may refer to:* Necklace - a jewelry which is worn around the neck* Mail , a type of armor made of interlocking chain links...
  
  s. Together they form a long flexible tube, which is hung down the side of the building. The lower end of this tube is placed over a skip
  Skip (container)
  A rubbish skip is usually called merely a skip or waste bin. A skip is a large open-topped container designed for loading onto a special type of lorry. Differing from dumpster, instead of being emptied into a waste vehicle onsite, a skip is replaced by an empty skip and then tipped at a landfill...
  
   or other receptacle, and waste materials are dropped into the top. Heavy duty steel chutes may also be used when the debris being deposited is heavy duty and in cases of particularly high buildings.

An elevator

Elevator

An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...

 is not a chute since it does not operate by means of gravity.

Chutes in transportation

Goust

Goust

Goust is a hamlet in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department of southwestern France. For centuries it was governed as an independent republic, and was never formally annexed by France. Noted for its centenarians, one pensioner was reported to have reached the age of 123.- Geography :Goust is located on...

, a hamlet in southwestern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, is notable for its mountainside chute that is used to transport coffin

Coffin

A coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of dead people – either for burial or cremation.Contemporary North American English makes a distinction between "coffin", which is generally understood to denote a funerary box having six sides in plan view, and "casket", which...

s.

Chutes are also found in:

• Hopper car
  Hopper car
  A hopper car is a type of railroad freight car used to transport loose bulk commodities such as coal, ore, grain, track ballast, and the like. The name originated from the coke manufacturing industry which is part of the steel industry ....
  
  s
• Hopper barge
  Hopper barge
  Hopper barge is a kind of non-mechanical ship or vessel that cannot move around by itself, unlike some other types of barges. Designed to carry materials, like rocks, sand, soil and rubbish, for dumping into the ocean, a river or lake for land reclamation....
  
  s