A Mitsubishi i-MiEV garbage truck

I’m sure all of us here have seen a garbage collector truck going about doing it stuff around our neighbourhoods before. Once in a while they would stop and the engine would begin revving high while stationary. The engine is actually powering the garbage compactor. This of course causes both environmental and noise pollution.
Kyokuto Kaihatsu Kogyo Co., Ltd. has worked with Mitsubishi to install the i-MiEV’s electric drive into the garbage truck. Of course, the tiny system designed for a compact car isn’t powerful enough to move the whole truck on electric power. Instead, only the garbage compactor runs on the i-MiEV system.
According to them, the results are decent. They managed a 75% cut in truck CO2 emissions during use by utilizing battery power for the trash compactor instead of the engine. And of course if you just shut off the engine while you’re compacting the trash this can be reduced to zero in terms of both noise and CO2 emissions. There is even a benefit cost-wise as the electricity cost to run the trash compactor is significantly less than diesel fuel usually used in normal trash compactors.
With almost no noise and no gas emissions during compactor use, the new truck is optimal for trash collection from within buildings, during early morning or late at night. Of course here in Malaysia there is no such consideration for noise pollution – everyone just does whatever they want without thought for others.

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