Coming: Eco-friendly waste collection trucks
29 high-tech trucks rolling out in April for 151,000 households in western S'pore
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The new environmentally friendly waste collection trucks from Alba W&H have solar mats installed on their roofs (far right) to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions.
PHOTO: ALBA W&H
Lester Wong
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New environmentally friendly and high-tech waste collection trucks are rolling out on April 1 to service about 151,000 households in the western part of Singapore.
This comes after the National Environment Agency (NEA) yesterday awarded a new seven-year waste collection contract for the Jurong sector to Alba W&H, a joint venture between European environmental solutions company Alba and home-grown waste management firm Wah & Hua.
The trucks have solar mats installed on their roofs to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions.
Alba W&H's fleet will comprise 29 new trucks, of which three will be fully electric. The rest will be powered by diesel engines.
NEA was not able to say if the trucks are the first with solar mats to be deployed here.
Alba W&H's trucks with rear-end loaders will also be equipped with load cells that can measure the weight of the waste collected in real time, which will help NEA to better formulate its waste reduction programmes.
Additionally, Alba W&H will deploy side-loader recycling bins at 591 Housing Board blocks for its four recycling trucks, which will be painted the same shade of blue as the recycling bins.
The side-loader will help the truck driver collect the recyclables by himself without the assistance of additional crew, saving manpower and boosting productivity, NEA said.
The Jurong sector covers the West Coast, Chua Chu Kang, Jurong and Holland-Bukit Timah GRCs, and the Hong Kah North, Pioneer, Yuhua and Bukit Batok single-member constituencies.
The Alba W&H trucks will service 151,000 households and 5,000 trade premises, including hawker stalls, shops and government buildings.
The company's contract with NEA runs from April 1 this year to March 31, 2027.
Residents will also be able to make use of a new mobile app called Step Up Recycling, which awards points to users who make an effort to recycle and segregate their waste properly.
Users collect the points by scanning QR codes found on the blue recycling bins around their neighbourhood and the points can be used to redeem rewards, NEA said.
The app will also show the user the location of the nearest recycling bin, and provide information and dates of upcoming educational and recyclable collection events.
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151,000
Number of households Alba W&H's trucks will service.
There will be no changes to domestic refuse collection fees for households in HDB blocks and condominiums, and landed premises.
The fees will remain at $8.25 and $27.47 a month, respectively.
