Waste collection authorities have been increasingly demanding trucks that offer higher efficiency, lower emissions, greater durability, and safer working conditions. This is why the waste sector must seek ‘quality’. A number of manufacturers show how quality equipment is the way forward ...
by Malcolm Bates
No industry stands still. But have the issues that were top of the agenda in 2005 come to pass in 2006? Are we moving in the right direction or have unforeseen factors taken over? If we’re looking for ‘happenings’ that so far haven’t happened, then some sort of international agreement or consensus on the effects of global warming has to be the biggest disappointment of the year for those concerned about the environment. But what effect could the lack of progress on measures to reduce global warming have on the design of waste vehicles? The longer it takes to come up with an agreed protocol on measures designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, for example, the harder it will be for manufacturers of vehicles and mobile plant to justify the expensive research needed to come up with improved standards. The waste industry also keeps equipment for longer than most other users. There’s a danger that we could end up being seen as trailing behind other sectors, rather than at the forefront showing the way.
Have the last 12 months given us any pointers to the future? We ask a great deal of refuse collection vehicles (RCVs) and pavement sweepers. Operators increasingly expect more ‘specification’ for their money. In addition to increasing unladen weight, this can also have an impact on reliability - a tall order where abrasive dust, moisture and heat are part of the everyday environment. Yet as you can read elsewhere in this issue, electronic systems to help us monitor performance continue to advance.
Quality approach catching on?
While pressures to reduce prices are ongoing, evidence seems to indicate that ‘quality’ equipment is catching on. Though cheaper budget solutions are naturally of interest where there is doubt over the future, the old saying ‘the quality remains long after the purchase price is forgotten’ applies in the waste industry.
 Waste handling is now a global business, with major brands such as JCB, Cat and Case all building sales organizations in emerging economies to meet perceived demand |
Industry specialists such as German-based hydraulic plant manufacturer Sennebogen and UK-based waste collection vehicle manufacturer Dennis Eagle have introduced new designs, increased production and reported on sales successes in both domestic and export markets. As already reported in Waste Management World (March-April 2006 issue), in the case of Sennebogen this has resulted in the specific waste sector Green Line product range branding and a complete reorganization of the company’s product facilities to put waste-handling equipment at the forefront of a new marketing policy.
After-sales service is the key
In the case of Dennis Eagle, renewed interest in purpose-built ‘quality’ has resulted in the company selling its products to city authorities in China at a time when budget-price Chinese truck chassis and waste vehicle equipment manufacturers have redoubled their efforts to find markets for their products overseas. Unfortunately, the last year has also given us an indication of how the increased industrialization of China may bring legal and commercial conflicts to the fore; Chinese-manufactured products using some technology and designs provided under licence for ‘home market only’ consumption are reported to be finding their way back into mainstream export markets - in many cases, markets where the ‘original’ product is still being marketed.
With major manufacturers of mobile plant such as UK-based JCB keen to be seen as global brands by building manufacturing plants in China and India, the sight of Yuejin ‘Chinese copies’ of the Japanese Nissan Cabstar light truck range at a European truck show serves to underline just how difficult life in a global market can be.
 More Multihandler models are planned. The unit can work with a bucket or forks and other attachments in a number of waste and recycling applications |
These examples help to illustrate one of the key differences between ‘quality’ and ‘budget’ equipment - the ‘power of the brand’ in relation to whole life costs of ownership and the availability (or otherwise) of after-sales service back-up and warranty.
In the waste sector, it is these issues that can mark out a product for success or failure. Oddly then, there remains a considerable difference in what may be considered acceptable in terms of ‘factory’ levels of service back-up and warranty - not only on a global basis, but even at a ‘regional’ level such as within Europe.
 Some Chinese-built products are finding their way back into mainstream western markets. This Yuejin is essentially a Nissan built under licence for the Chinese home market |
If we look back over the last 12 months, it’s easy to find examples of how these contrasts can affect the introduction of a new product into our industry. For example, rather than rush to sign up a string of sales agents, Iceland-based manufacturer Ecoprocess has quietly and deliberately been building up a string of company-controlled service outlets in each country so that its electric binlifter equipment has the technical back-up necessary before units enter service. This approach clearly takes far longer - it is over two years since I first saw the prototype unit. But with units now in service in a number of countries outside Iceland such as France (where Ecoprocess has a factory), the UK and Spain, it underlines how even premium-priced quality products can win sales in a price-competitive market. It also serves to remind us that not all good ideas come from large, multi-national manufacturers.
‘Low-entry’ aiming high
So how about some of the other examples of where high-quality designs are winning orders against cheaper products? The last year has certainly shown a strong revival in the fortunes of that ‘Holy Grail’ of the RCV - the low-entry cab.
Looking back to the 1930s, for an RCV to be any good, it had to come from a specialist manufacturer. Low-entry cabs, environmentally friendly battery electric power and long vehicle life were issues way back then. While other factors such as refuse compaction ratios and unladen weight came to the fore during the 1960s and 1970s, one of the toughest design problems has always been to find a way of building a truck cab to take a driver and crew (taking into account the need for constant crew entry and exit at the kerbside), combined with off-highway performance on the landfill site.
Just when such designs were ‘coming good’ technically, the cost of manufacturing complex specialist vehicles started to rise dramatically. At the same time, a swing towards privatization of previously municipal-run services introduced demands for profit and dividends. The added cost of specialist equipment seemed an easy target for achieving savings. As outlined elsewhere in this issue, the news that truck manufacturer Scania has recently decided to put a low-entry cab range into production following a number of years of building such units in a ‘knife and fork’ manner suggests a strong future of the low-entry cab truck chassis for waste collection.
Like Mercedes Benz (or DaimlerChrysler as it is now known), Scania recognized that to produce a low-entry design suitable for the waste sector, it made sense to find other applications where a low-cab step height and unobstructed cross-cab access would be of value. And as with the Mercedes Econic, those other uses include retail distribution.
 Iceland’s Ecoprocess electric binlifter was designed with minimizing noise emissions in mind |
With well established players such as the Dennis Eagle Elite and Mercedes Econic now joined by the MAN TGA Low Entry (as reported exclusively in Waste Management World in the January-February 2005 issue) and Scania, it could be that the next 12 months could finally see global acceptance of what until now has been very much a European solution to crew health and safety issues. The fact that enhanced working conditions can also increase working efficiency might perhaps speed up the introduction of low-entry cab RCVs into wider world markets - just as this helped promote the introduction of low-entry cab RCVs into private commercial contractor fleets that once purchased cheaper standard trucks.
Has gas gone up in smoke?
Considering that alternative-fuelled RCVs actually date back to a time when all vehicles were an ‘alternative’ to horse power, many environmentalists must be disappointed that neither the battery-driven electric nor the natural-gas-powered RCV has made any impact in the last year. Compressed natural gas (CNG) and/or liquefied natural gas (LNG) systems seemed to hold such promise several years ago, so what went wrong? Part of the answer seems to be that the diesel engine has just kept on getting better and, as brief tests in both Euro-4 and Euro-5 trucks confirm, these have no side effects in terms of availability or performance.
But that doesn’t stop those in charge of clean air policies in large cities from wanting even lower emissions and less noise. While Euro-4 and Euro-5 diesel trucks might not quite get down to the decibel (dBA) levels of CNG/LNG-fuelled vehicles, noise is no longer the issue it was. The gap has narrowed.
Could the next big issue relate to zero-emission zones in cities? Certainly this is on the agenda in a number of French cities (it may be just a coincidence that PVI/Renault has a battery electric-powered Puncher low-entry RCV chassis to promote), but there is likely to be a different take on this issue from the US.
Self-financing hybrid? That’s clever!
In the US, vehicle industry component supplier Dana Corporation has developed a hybrid drive system that enables the fuel injection system of the truck’s own diesel engine to shut down some of its effort, replacing anything up to a third of the required brake horsepower with hydraulic power discharged from an on-board accumulator. This stored power is not in the form of electricity, but hydraulic pressure stored in pressure cylinders. The power comes from a regenerative braking system charged when the RCV is brought to a stop each time it reaches a waste container or traffic signal.
Although the prototypes of Dana’s Intelligent Hydraulic Drive (IHD) system were designed for military applications, profit-conscious US waste haulers have identified significant cost savings in truck brake system servicing by adopting IHD. This example underlines the fact that, for any environmentally friendly design advance to succeed, it has to offer real advantages over existing systems. Dana insists IHD can repay its cost within 4-5 years.
So could a hybrid drive system be the big technical ‘must have’ feature on the next generation of refuse collection vehicles? Dana certainly hopes so. But unlike a related system designed for lightweight trucks up to 3.5 tonnes gross weight, application of IHD to trucks in the 26-tonne gross weight bracket does not enable them to be driven with the engine switched off. What IHD does do is give a significant boost to either the initial acceleration of any given horsepower engine or to enable that engine to make significant reductions in the fuel used to get the truck rolling again after each stop on the collection route.
That doesn’t, as such, offer the option of enabling a hybrid vehicle to work in a zero-emissions zone. But when combined with a low-emission diesel engine working with a ‘compaction at tickover’ body and hopper unit and coupled with an Ecoprocess electric binlifter (which does not result in the engine revs increasing each time a waste container is lifted), there are significant improvements in emissions, efficiency and noise reduction. There is also the added bonus that the increased weight of Euro-4/Euro-5-compliant engines and the added weight of IHD could be offset by the 0.5-tonne weight saving of the Ecoprocess unit over existing hydraulic binlift systems.
Biggest potential
But perhaps the biggest potential advance in efficiency and vehicle/crew utilization is also the hardest nut to crack. Just like the concept of alternative-fuelled RCVs, the multi-modal concept also dates back to the start of mechanized waste collection. Unfortunately, we still haven’t got it right and we don’t even have universal agreement that it’s worth taking a bold step in the right direction. Statistics show that we’re actually producing a greater volume of waste now than before recycling measures took off.
 This waste container handling system designed by Shelvoke & Drewry in the late 1940s for service in London underlines that there is very little that is entirely ‘new’ |
While neighbouring towns fail to agree on the best method of collecting and recycling materials, there seems little chance of a national system - let alone a regional or international approach. But there really needs to be movement on this issue before demountable, multi-modal waste container designs can hope to gain the acceptance they deserve - just as there was in the world of shipping before containerization became the norm. Is there room for more than one design? Or would one single system designed by a committee slow the whole process down?
One key development in the last year demonstrates that innovative designers and forward-thinking management can move a lot faster that politicians. German-based Hüffermann Entsorgungssysteme - now labelled HN Logistic Systems in English-speaking markets - is working on a demountable hooklift style ‘body pod’ container that can be used by any operator of hooklift trucks.
HN Logistic, which is now part of the ESE Group based in Maastricht (which includes Otto binlifters and waste containers), is already able to supply front-, rear- and side-loading units for waste collection using the same basic design of demount body. The company is now working on a universal design suitable for use with the systems produced by other manufacturers. As Hüffermann can already supply bulk waste truck and trailer systems for disposal vehicles, this next year could finally be the one when multi-modal comes good. This is especially important when large capital cities such as London are facing bulk waste transfer trips of over 50 miles (80 km) to the nearest landfill sites and with journeys twice or even three times that distance now common for recyclable materials. This strengthens the case for containers, off-peak travel and return load options.
The bottom line?
It may be that a more diverse waste stream made up of six, eight or even more specific types of waste will demand a greater number of smaller vehicles and fewer large ones. Certainly ‘satellite vehicle’ technology is ready to meet that demand - even if it’s hard to see such ideas working in conjunction with multi-modal systems.
Differences of opinion regarding the best location for the container lifting equipment and hopper location also remain. Is it over the front of the cab as favoured by Faun MSTS, Scalvenzi and many commercial front-end-loading (FEL) waste operators? Is it from the kerbside so the whole lifting process can be observed from driver’s cab? Or is the traditional rear-loading hopper still the best solution in terms of vehicle dynamics and versatility?
Once all the other factors such as individual choice of truck chassis and waste collection body/hopper system manufacturer have been considered, perhaps it’s easier to understand why the pace of change is sometimes a little slower than some of us might like. But as our Review Issue next year will probably confirm, the pace is certainly hotting up.
Malcolm Bates is Transport Correspondent of Waste Management World
.e-mail: wmw@jxj.com
To comment on this article or to see related features from our archive, go to www.waste-management-world.com and click the ‘Forum’ tab.
