The City of Fremantle has again demonstrated its commitment to sustainability through the trial of a new electric-powered rubbish truck.
EVie the EV will be plying the streets of Fremantle for the next four weeks as part of the trial to assess the performance of electric vehicles in local conditions.
Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt said if the trial was successful it could pave the way for the City's entire waste collection fleet to go electric.
"Being a zero carbon council is one of the key commitments in our One Planet strategy," Mayor Pettitt said.
"A normal rubbish trucks uses about 500 litres of diesel fuel and produces more than 1.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every week.
"At the moment the EVie will be charged using mains power, but there's the potential for electric trucks to be charged using 100 per cent renewable energy in future.
"If we can do that it would avoid around 68 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year by replacing just one of our rubbish trucks with an electric vehicle.
"The electric trucks are also cheaper to run - which will deliver savings for ratepayers - and they're much quieter, which is great news for people who like a morning sleep in."
The electric vehicle trial will be conducted on behalf of the City of Fremantle by waste management company Cleanaway.
State Municipal Manager Daniel Le Provost said Cleanaway was the first waste collection contractor in Australia to introduce electric rubbish trucks.
"We launched our first electric vehicles in Melbourne earlier this year and we've had good results so far," Mr Le Provost said.
"EVie will be housed and charged overnight at the Southern Metropolitan Regional Council's resource recovery centre in Canning Vale, and we'll also have charging stations at the City of Fremantle depot, the Welshpool transfer station and our head office in Malaga.
"Charging takes about 10 hours and we expect to get about eight hours of running time but that depends a lot on travel distances and also the style of driving, so we'll be working closely with the City and the driver to optimise the vehicle's performance.
"With almost 5000 vehicles on the road each day servicing homes and businesses all over Australia, we're really excited to be working with the City of Fremantle to explore ways of doing things more sustainably."
To watch a video about EVie click here.
