Sanitation division outlines garbage, recycling and pilot electric truck limits

Sanitation Administrator Joe Farrell told the council on Aug. 4 that the city’s sanitation operation serves about 6,500 customers weekly and operates a mixed fleet for garbage, recycling and yard waste collection. Farrell said the division runs 26 side‑load trucks (ASLs), six front‑load trucks for yard and bulk waste, six rear‑loads, one grapple truck for appliances and seven recycling trucks assigned across routes. Farrell said the city collected about 6,400 tons of recycling in the last fiscal year and removed 614 toters from service for repeated contamination. He described the department’s “scrub” collection events (nine annual scrubs, five large “mega scrubs” with document shredding and e‑waste collection) and reported 752 tons of yard waste and 826 tons of garbage collected at recent scrubs. On new vehicle technology, Farrell said the department is piloting an electric collection truck but confirmed it has not always completed full routes; drivers have used public charging stations and operational changes to manage battery limits. Separately, he described a B100 biodiesel program that splits fuel tanks so trucks can be started on diesel in cold weather and switched to biodiesel; the presentation said biodiesel use reduces greenhouse gas emissions by about 86% when operating on that fuel. The presentation recorded operations and pilot results; it was informational and produced no formal council action.