Thinking on environmentally friendly lines, the New York City Department of Sanitation wishes to benefit the citizens and the environment with its hybrid garbage trucks. The department has proclaimed that coming September it will start serving the citizens in western Queens with the first of the three trucks. To lighten the effect of city’s 2,200 emission-heavy collection trucks, the Sanitation department brings a change by using hybrid ones that reduce emissions drastically.
Mack Trucks and the Crane Carrier company boost their green credentials by providing one and two hybrid trucks respectively that would use 30 percent less fuel than the ones used presently. These new vehicles are slightly longer than the conventional trucks and have green panels along the side. The count is expected to increase from the current three to seven with the addition of four hybrids from Crane that are on order.
Both the companies’ trucks vary in technology. While the Mack Trucks use hybrid electric technology that stores energy from braking into batteries, the Crane Carrier Corporation brings hybrid hydraulic technology into play. The Crane trucks store energy in a cylinder of compressed gas instead of in a battery. These hybrid trucks cost $500,000, which is the double of what it would take to make a conventional one. However, federal subsidies encouraging hybrid vehicles are to cover $250,000 of the cost.