The sector is evolving towards a more sustainable and cheap management

The tons of waste that we generate are not only a problem for themselves, but that its collection is an emission of CO₂ and noise into the air to increase its impact. Brands such as Volvo and Renault have already on the market vehicles that may be the beginning of the end of this problem: the hybrid trucks of garbage collection.

The Swedish brand Volvo takes nearly two years of testing a truck urban waste collection that works with a hybrid of diesel and electric engine. The company Veolia try now in London an improved version of the vehicle that Volvo Trucks already tested in the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Goteborg. Similar to this truck, Renault experiments in Lyon since October 2008 with his prototype, like Volvo, will succeed in reducing by 30% about the emissions of CO₂ into the atmosphere.

The parallel hybrid engine has two separate drivers axes, one for diesel and one for electricity, which can be used separately or together

Both vehicles operate in a similar way. It's an engine known as a parallel hybrid, i.e., an engine with two separate drivers axes, one for diesel and one for electricity, which can be used separately or together. The benefit of this is that each type of fuel can be used there where more efficient: the electric motor at low revolutions and the diesel to high engine revolutions.

New Volvo FE hybrid model.

The garbage truck has a renewed power steering electric, with completely new control systems, as well as strategies for management of refining the battery to optimize the performance of the battery. Loading and compaction of rubbish are completely electrically, by means of a declared plug-in that is charged through the main electricity grid. The battery is also new, with greater reliability and longer life.

On an annual basis, the hybrid engine saves 5,250 litres of fuel, compared to a traditional diesel engine

The electric power system provides a high level of startup, low level of noise and emissions free loading and compaction of rubbish. In terms of consumption of fuel and climate impact, the results are even better than expected. He has been a reduction of up to 35%. On an annual basis, the hybrid saves 5,250 litres of fuel, compared to a traditional diesel engine.

The hybrid vehicle consists of an electric motor which is responsible for booting and propulsion up to 20 km/h; the diesel engine is used in the phase of movement. The vehicle battery is recharging energy recovering braking and deceleration phases, what constitutes a gain of 20% compared to a conventional system.

FCC invested four years in finding a special prototype to meet two criteria for the future: reducing the levels of noise and pollution. SAFT, company specialized in advanced technologies of electric batteries, was commissioned to provide the construction technology of hybrid engines. They are smaller vehicles designed expressly for circular by the closer of the Centre of the capital streets, especially in the neighbourhoods of Lavapies and Chueca.

For its part, Urbaser, the company responsible for the collection of waste in Barcelona, uses trucks Premium distribution Hybrys. Like his brothers of Volvo and Renault, these trucks - presented at German industrial vehicle at Hanover Fair 2008-have two engines. The electric motor propels the truck when the speed is less than 20 km/h and get energy when it slows the vehicle or slowing down.

Renault also develops a truck for the collection of waste with hybrid technology.

The acme of this whole story lies in the small English town of Huddersfield. This city is the first in the world to use a collector garbage truck that moves with household waste collected.The car is a Ford Transit, equipped with a battery of íon-lithium of 40 kWh, allowing you to reach a maximum speed of 80 kilometres per hour. It has a capacity of 3.5 tons and a range of approximately 160 kilometres enough to quietly meet its route of 25 points of collection in the municipality of 150 thousand inhabitants.Garbage collected by the truck is processed and transformed into energy in an electric generator. In a single day can generate 10 megawatts. Part of that energy is used to recharge the vehicle engine. That leftover is used by the municipality.

These are the vehicles that will populate soon the nights of our cities. The reduction of emissions of CO₂ will certainly help improve the quality of the air we breathe, but above all, the decrease of the noise, it is the most visible impact for the citizens. Turns will be far in the bed growling while a truck picks up everything that we have discarded during the day. That Yes, careful crossing the street at night – already not we can trust just ear.

The pneumatic transport of waste allows you to manage and centralize the collection of waste in buildings, residential areas, business centers or airports in an automated way

There is also a collection system which, if not definitively end the urban collection, that would diminish her and her centralizaría. The pneumatic transport of waste in homes allows you to manage and centralize automated the collection of waste in buildings, residential areas, centers of business, airports, etc. Thus avoiding conventional collection system through containers implementation which allows to reduce the inconveniences involved in these systems, such as the visual impact, the odours or dirt.The basic configuration of an installation of pneumatic transport is based on the implementation of a network of pneumatic transport and pick up from the point of generation of trash to a central point. There waste is accumulated and compacted in large containers for subsequent transport to the plant of treatment of waste. In each of the floors of the buildings existing in the network of collection is normally installed a hopper or box collection for fraction (organic, packaging and other).

Once the bags are introduced into the system, these are aspirated through a circuit formed by the network of collection, allowing transporting the garbage to the central collection. There is installed a cyclone of download, the Group of aspiration and the containers/trash compactors. 24 Hours a day, 365 days a year we can rid our waste with less discomfort from the usual. The Lleida company Ros Roca operates already with these facilities in hospitals and airports, although it has launched the most ambitious projects ranging to the 110,000 inhabitants of the city of Córdoba.