Electric refuse vehicle to be trialled in the Wycombe and Chiltern districts

A new electric refuse vehicle is to be trialled by the Joint Waste Partnership in the Wycombe and Chiltern districts.

Produced by UK-based Electra Commercial Vehicles, the Electra lorry has lower emissions and are less noisy than traditional refuse vehicles as well as offering many potential benefits for the waste collection services delivered by both the Councils.

Not only are electric refuse vehicles better for the environment but they potentially more economical to run with electric power being readily available at a reasonable cost.

Cllr Julia Adey, Cabinet Member for Environment at Wycombe District Council, said: ‘The joint waste team has a fleet of 39 collection vehicles which clocks up over 50,000 miles every month – over 600,000 miles in a year. Each one travels around 1,300 miles a month and collects 264 tonnes of refuse, recycling, green waste and food across the areas served by Wycombe and Chiltern District Councils.

Moving over to electric vehicles could seriously reduce our carbon footprint and have an enormous impact on air quality in our local area. We are a frontrunner to look at using electric vehicles for our joint waste service.

We’re a long way off from making the change, but it’s an important first step in looking at practical ways we can lead from the front and use our fleet to make a difference to protect our local environment and improve our service.‘

The Electra will be trialled by a number of different waste crews in certain locations across both the Chiltern and Wycombe districts to test the electric vehicle in terms of whether it can handle local hills, tonnages and amount of time spent operating each day.

A short video of the new electric refuse collection vehicle can be seen in the clip below which was published on the Chiltern District Council Twitter page.

https://twitter.com/ChilternCouncil/status/1067809434813063168