Pending approval by city council during budget talks next month, a new garbage truck could be added to the city's fleet.
A case is being made for spending as much as $345,000 on a larger, up-to-date version of the six trucks the city currently deploys to pick up garbage around the city and, depending on how rugged the new purchase may be, spending a further $115,000 on a shed to store the vehicle.
The automated collection system has been in place for a bit more than five years now and some of the trucks, which use hydraulic arms to pick up the containers, are starting to show some wear and tear, said parks and solid waste services manager Aidan Kelly.
The industry standard is to replace the trucks every seven to nine years, but by purchasing a new truck now, the life of the rest of the fleet could be extended a little further, said Kelly, who added the trucks go through a lot in a day.
"These trucks stop and go every 50 feet and that's what puts wear and tear on a vehicle," he said. "You're going to a house and the lift is doing all the work, the packer's doing all the work and then they're starting up again and going to the next one."
With a newer truck in the fleet, the older ones can get more attention.
"What's happening now is we're having trucks that are constantly out on the road and there's not a lot of time for downtime for extra preventative maintenance and giving the trucks a break," said Kelly.
And while a larger truck will cost more than a smaller one, Kelly suggested it should pay itself back in lower operating costs, because it can carry more garbage, and so reduce the number of trips to the landfill.
The existing trucks travel from the pickup zones to the landfill three times each day and that can add up to as much as three hours of extra driving a day.
"That's one of the big costs," Kelly said. "You've got a landfill out at the end of Foothills and if you've got a smaller truck and you're up in College Heights collecting garbage, you've got a long way back and forth to the landfill."
At a cost of $115,000, adding a new 750-square-foot shed at the 18th Ave. public works yard may also be in order, because it will be too large to fit into any of the five existing bays. But it will depend on the quality of the new truck's hydraulics and air compression apparatus and how well they stand up to the winter cold.
"It's just smarter to plan in advance for things that might come up for the course of the year," Kelly said.
If approved, the cost of the truck will be covered by a share of the $2.9 million the city is expected to receive from the federal government's excise tax on gasoline. The shed, meanwhile, would be paid for out of a reserve built up for the garbage collection utility - one of the reasons behind the series of rate increases for the service over the last few years.
"There's been a trend towards having user fees cover the cost of the service and indeed, where possible, building up even a small surplus that could help offset capital costs such as this," said Coun. Murry Krause, who chairs the finance and audit committee.
Effective Jan. 1, households pay $131 a year for the small container, $167 for the medium and $211 for the large, increases of $11, $17 and $21 respectively.
"We appreciate people's concern about continued increases for utilities plus taxes, but I guess it's our challenge to continue to offer services to the community, replace capital equipment as we need it and care for it properly," Krause said.
mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
