Solid Waste Draft Report - The Town of Silver City

4.3.2 Assumptions
The recommended automated
refuse collection service
will serve more
accounts with fewer personnel than
is the case with the existing
program which relies on
extensive
manual labor and “hand
picking” to drive
the routes, retrieve refuse
from the street,
and then place it into old
vehicles whose
compaction mechanisms are worn down.
The required operating crew will be reduced from eight to four. Three of those
Automated, Side – Loading
Residential Refuse Truck
will be full – time route drivers while the fourth person will either supervise or “float” to fill
in for vacations or drive the container delivery truck. The remaining employees that
currently collect garbage would be available for reassignment to other solid waste
services the Sanitation Division will now be in a position to implement. The automated
equipment will increase collection productivity, which is the amount of carts or containers
collected per hour. For example, a low estimate for residential cart collection is 65 carts
an hour.
Depending on the weekly trash volume and accessibility to the
container, most commercial customers will be serviced by a
front – load container collection system. The front – load truck
has the ability to collect up to 8 cubic yard yards or 10,000
pounds of waste with one lift, thus reducing the frequency of
collection due to limitations on container size and weight. Front
– load collection systems also eliminate the need for a utility
worker to spot the truck while backing up or to hook the
container for
Automated, Front – Loading
Commercial Refuse Truck
unloading. The driver simply “stabs” the container with the forks, lifts and empties the
dumpster into the truck, and puts the container back into place. If the dumpster is
placed in its designated location by the generator there is no need for a two – person
crew or for the driver to get out of the truck. Total lift time is less than 45 seconds
compared to 1 to 5 minutes for the rear – loading vehicles now used by the Town. The
rear – loading vehicles necessitate an employee to manually position a bin for emptying
or pick up individual bags of trash and place them into the truck. This will no longer have
to be done with the recommended commercial refuse collection program combining
Draft Solid Waste Report for Silver City, NM Page 24 of 32
Zia Consultants / Bell & Associates