The latest vehicle in the Palmy City Council rubbish truck fleet has only been on the road for a few weeks. Today I was lucky enough to catch up with it while collecting commercial food waste from the local shopping mall. This Isuzu F Series truck was first registered New Zealand new on 18 September 2023.
The City Council offers a paid commercial food waste collection service for businesses, restaurants and other commercial places which produce a large enough volume of food waste. This service operates daily, offering flexibility on collection days and frequency of service. They accept food scraps, including meat and bones, coffee grounds, paper towels and certified compostable packaging.
Provided with 25x 80l bins, this shopping mall produces a lot of food waste with its big food court that would otherwise go to landfill and not be turned into anything beneficial. If all their bins are full, that is a potential of 2,000 litres of food waste recovered.
The food waste is processed locally at the Awapuni Resource Recovery Centre where it is turned into compost. Customers can choose between 80 litre or 240 litre wheelie bin.
Although today this truck was collecting food waste, this rear load rubbish truck and those similar in the council's fleet are "general purpose" and key in keeping the waste collection service running. Often being used for waste streams such as recycling, glass and general rubbish collection as needed, they can be used on small/tight streets or when their primary/dedicated truck is off the road due to a breakdown or servicing. For example, today I ran into one of their older rear lift vehicles collecting the inner-city glass; I was hoping to film their electric EV glass truck, but this will have to wait for another day as it did not seem to be on the road today.
Those with egal eyes may have spotted that the passenger door on the left-hand side of the vehicle look a little different to the driver's side. This is because the passenger door can be pinned open to allow for a runner to safely and with ease get in and out of the vehicle. Therefore this vehicle is also classed as a "low entry vehicle" (LEV), adding to how dynamic and diverse this vehicle can be.
You may also note that the body on this truck is from ShinMaywa Industries, Ltd, a Japanese company. This is a change from the Mid West Engineering bodies often used by the council. It is also noted that the hopper style, with its rotating plate being used to scoop the waste before a second plate is used to press the waste into the body of the truck, must be preferred by the council on their rear lifts. Until seeing the new truck today, I thought they may have been using older, outdated compactor bodies. However I guess when dealing with things like food waste, this method of using a rotating scoop would probably ensure for a cleaner hopper after each cycle with less waste falling back into the hopper during the cycling process like would occur on a more traditional sliding plate compactor rear load design.
A big thank you to the driver for letting me film the tuck today.
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16 окт 2024
