As the ACT government hunkers down over prospective tenders for a new co-mingled recyclables facility in Hume, multi-national waste management giant Veolia is pitching for that business, and is also keen to build a solar panel and battery recycling centre in Canberra.
Already pushing for a controversial $600 million rubbish incinerator to be built at its Woodlawn facility at Tarago, north of the ACT, the French company aims to become a much bigger player in the southern region of NSW.
Winning the huge tender to replace to Hume facility which burned down 14 months ago would be a major step in those corporate ambitions.
The plant went up in smoke on Boxing Day 2022 when a lithium-ion battery entered the co-mingled waste stream and generated a thermal runaway.
Veolia's chief executive officer Richard Kirkman paid a whistlestop visit to Canberra last week to promote its decarbonisation program, one part of which involves an all-electric Volvo refuse collection truck trundling around various ACT suburbs to test its operational viability.
The so-called "Green Machine" has been silently going about its business since mid-January and the lone vehicle trial, which winds up soon, will help inform the company's future fleet purchases.
The local trial only involved co-mingled waste, which is far lighter than household waste, but nonetheless helped to test electric driving range, capability, and suitability.
Demonstrating a transition to electric vehicles is seen by many ACT government contractors as useful in winning future business but the stakes are much higher for Veolia, which currently has about 3000 diesel-powered compactors on its national fleet.
The Volvo FM Electric refuse truck, with its 16 cubic metre capacity and rear-loading, costs about twice as much as the diesel version.
"But there are significant cost savings, such as fuel and maintenance, over the working life of the truck," Mr Kirkman said.
The second-generation Volvo FM, similar to that which is being trialled by the ACT Emergency Services Agency, produces about 237kW. The third-generation version, coming soon, produces about a third more power and has better range.
Battery capacity is still an issue with the electric Volvo refuse truck effectively saddled with two huge and very heavy battery packs between its front and rear axles which run the truck and also power up the hydraulic pumps.
For a 23-tonne truck, it has a maximum six-tonne load capacity, and a driving range of 300 kilometres. Recharging time is around eight hours.
Aside from the weight issue, the stop-start nature of rubbish collection is almost ideal for an electric powertrain because maximum torque is produced from take-off and the constant stopping regenerates power into the batteries.
There's also no noisy pre-dawn diesel engine noise to disturb the sleeping burghers of Canberra.
Meanwhile, the ACT is still - very expensively - sending its co-mingled waste interstate for processing and is likely to do so until 2026.
