National

Sustainability First: Greener Garbage Collection

NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Garbage and waste collection is a necessary part of modern life, but it’s also extremely taxing on the environment.

Published

3 years ago

May 4, 2023

Marlena Leonard

NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Garbage and waste collection is a necessary part of modern life, but it’s also extremely taxing on the environment.

In the United States, although heavy-duty trucks only make up four percent of the vehicles on the road, they make up almost 25% of that country’s transportation greenhouse gasses, and use 20% of america’s fuel.

Here in The Bahamas, we’ve had our fair share of struggles with waste management but now that many of the landfill woes have been addressed, Francisco de Cardenas, Managing Director at Bahamas Waste shared.

Now, there’s a different issue that impacts the waste management systems on our roads of course more time sitting in traffic means more emissions.

Different countries have tried to come up with different solutions for the issue, with groups in the U.S. working on pushing for renewable natural gas fueled trucks.

Because of its chemical similarity to fossil fuel derived gas, this solution would allow the new fuel to be used in the existing existing diesel engines that are already in circulation.

In the United Kingdom, in 2021, waste company BIFFA trialed solar-assisted powered waste trucks in their efforts to have a 50% emission reduction by 2030, and net zero by 2050.

If proven successful and implemented in their fleet of almost 3,000 trucks, the company says the amount of fuel saved would equate to over 95,000 miles and help save up to almost 20 million pounds of carbon emissions.