An aging fleet of garbage trucks with mechanical problems led to a disruption in garbage collection recently, but the City of Moose Jaw has worked to get the machines rolling again.
The public works department operates four automatic trucks and one manual truck to pick up refuse in the municipality, explained Jesse Watamanuk, public works supervisor. The fleet is 10 years old, which might not seem that bad, but as garbage trucks they have seen plenty of use in that time.
In fact, each machine has probably done two million pickups during the last decade, which means they have dumped garbage that many times as well, he continued. This affects all sections of the machine, including the chassis, engine and other components.
“These things are so old, and they’re all starting to go at the same time, so problems seem to spiral,” Watamanuk said. “We can only do so much maintenance before we see the wear and tear.”
One garbage truck was already in the shop for repairs when two other machines went down around July 22. This forced the public works department to re-arrange the days when garbage was collected. However, the department managed to get the machines back on the streets and pick up garbage throughout most of the municipality by July 22.
“Everything’s looking OK, knock on wood,” chuckled Watamanuk. “We’re hoping we don’t have any more interruptions to service, because that’s the last thing we want to do is have service-level interruptions. We just want to maintain our scope of work and try to get that completed every week.”
New garbage trucks are coming to the public works fleet in likely a year. Watamanuk explained that city council approved the purchase of new machines during this year’s budget discussions. However, it will take six to eight months to receive new trucks since they have to be custom built from the ground up. Unlike used vehicles, there are usually no garbage trucks sitting on a lot waiting to be purchased.
For more information about waste collection, visit the City of Moose Jaw’s website at https://moosejaw.ca.
Watamanuk reminds residents that Moose Jaw’s hazardous household waste day takes place Saturday, Aug. 24 at the public works yard on 1010 High Street West. He encourages everyone to bring their household waste to the yard for disposal instead of dumping the items in the landfill.
