Keep an eye out for the newest addition in the Mr Binman collection fleet on bin collection rounds in Limerick city and county now.
The fully electric vehicle will replace traditional diesel-powered trucks to reduce the carbon footprint of collections. And there is even more to the exciting story. Mr Binman plans to create the energy required to power their trucks from the waste collected from customers.
Mr Binman was honoured to have recently received one of the first eCollect electric bin trucks in Ireland from Dennis Eagle. It has been testing it on collection routes to make sure that it can complete them successfully.
Commenting on the electric truck, the sales and marketing director for Mr Binman Joe Cleary said: “We are working every day to reduce our carbon footprint. We have been working with our customers on this for a few years now with improved routing of collections and paperless billing. Having our collection vehicles powered by electricity is another step in that journey.
The fact that we can have trucks in the future powered by electricity or gas generated from the waste we collect is going to be the next exciting step.”
Organic waste collected from households or businesses can be put through a process called anaerobic digestion. This process harnesses natural bacteria in the absence of oxygen to produce a biogas. This biogas is then refined to produce a renewable gas which powers the trucks, resulting in net zero collections.
“The thought of a customer having their waste collected by a vehicle which is powered by waste itself is very exciting for us and our customers,” said Mr Cleary.
“It shows how the circular economy can really work to improve sustainability. Using waste as a resource will stop depletion of the planet’s own resources like oil and will also reduce emissions, which is fantastic for the environment.”
The electric vehicle Mr Binman has in service at the moment is powered by five packs of lithium-ion batteries which produce 300kWh of power to drive the 200kW motor on the electric bin truck.
Talking of the investment involved, Brian Dillon, managing director of Mr Binman said: “There is a large financial cost and even delays in the supply-chain when purchasing electric or gas-powered vehicles at present, so our plan would be to renew our fleet over the next few years to introduce more zero emission vehicles. We want to be able to have all our fleet running on renewable energy sources and green energy as soon as possible.”
