Mercedes-Benz and trash are not two words that often go together, but Urbaser — a global waste management company that employs environmental solutions to help create a circular economy — is changing that.
CleanTechnica reported that the company, which has 150 facilities across 19 countries, just added five of Mercedes-Benz's eEconic battery-electric trash hauling trucks to its fleet. These trucks will serve the Danish city of Aarhus and are in addition to the nearly 50 eEconic trucks the company has employed in Danish cities such as Copenhagen and Vejle.
Urbaser further ordered another 50 of the trucks, which brings its Danish fleet to just over 100. The company is well on its way to cleaning up the dirty business of waste management.
Transportation accounts for over 16% of global carbon pollution. In 2019 alone, medium to heavy-duty vehicles released 503.3 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That's nearly a quarter of all pollution from the transport sector in North America, according to 8 Billion Trees.
Traditional diesel dump trucks pump out planet-warming pollutants like carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. They also burn dirty energy, contributing to our reliance on these non-renewable resources.
Aside from harming the environment, pollution from these trucks also adversely affects the health of the people living in the cities where they operate.
The eEconic offers an environmentally-friendly solution to the growing pollution problem in urban areas. As reported by CleanTechnica, the truck offers a fully electric drive system as well as regenerative braking, which recaptures some of the kinetic energy of the trucks when they slow and stop, making it the perfect vehicle for urban municipal jobs.
"Our eEconic for municipal tasks is being used in more and more cities as a locally CO2-neutral alternative in waste disposal," said Franziska Cusumano, head of Mercedes-Benz' special trucks and custom-tailored trucks division, in a press release. "We are very pleased that Urbaser A/S, as a valuable customer in this field of application from the very beginning, is completely satisfied with the battery-electric refuse collection vehicle."
"Our first experiences with the eEconic have been really good," added Stefan Olin, CEO at Urbaser, in the same release. "The decisive factor in our company's decision to go with the eEconic was the combination of the familiar low entry concept, the high level of safety, and the long range."
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