SACRAMENTO, Calif. — That garbage truck you hear lurching through your neighborhood first thing in the morning? It runs on natural gas or diesel, dirtying the air with nitrogen oxides and contributing to carbon emissions that worsen climate change.
Combustion trash trucks, with their short and fixed routes, are prime candidates for speedy conversion to electric. The resulting zero-emission waste collection would improve local air quality, especially in communities already burdened by industrial pollution.
But new California rules governing big rigs could keep trash trucks from going all-electric until 2042. The exemption is a boon to waste companies that spent the last decade investing in natural gas, mainly methane extracted from the ground.
