KUNA, Idaho — The streets of Kuna may be a little quieter on trash day. J&M Sanitation has upgraded its entire residential trash collection fleet to electric trash trucks, which are cleaner and quieter than their diesel counterparts.
- J&M Sanitation now has four electric trash trucks that are used on all residential routes throughout the city.
- Funding help for the new trucks came partially from the DEQ and money from the Volkswagen Clean Air Act civil settlement.
- J&M Sanitation plan to continue expanding their electric fleet and even plan to add solar panels to their facility to help power those electric trucks.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
“Our youngest one when we first started was in the car seat in the truck with me while I was picking up trash," said Tim Gordon, partial owner of J&M Sanitation.
J&M Sanitation is truly a family business.
“My other two sons were on the back during the summer months," added Tim Gordon.
Tim Gordon bought the business 38 years ago and has kept himself and his kids busy ever since.
“Me and my two younger brothers have grown up on the back of a garbage truck," said Chad Gordon, J&M's general manager and Tim's son.
He tells me his dad has been working towards electric trucks for a long time.
“Dad has had a dream for more years than I can count about getting our fleet changed over to electric," added Chad Gordon.
That dream became a reality when they bought their first two electric trucks in 2021 with help from the Department of Environmental Quality and money from the Volkswagen Clean Air Act civil settlement.
In the last month, they bought two more electric trucks making their entire residential collection fleet fully electric.
“The trash industry is actually one of the, probably the better industries to be using these vehicles in due to the fact that we do a lot of start and stop, and we’re not traveling great distances with the routes that we service," said Chad Gordon.
Chad tells me that it costs just $25 dollars a day to fuel one of the new electric trucks in comparison to more than $180 dollars a day to fuel a comparable diesel truck.
“They’ve proven to be a really reliable truck and much more cost-effective and there’s no problem with clean air and clean water," added Tim Gordon.
Since the trucks run on batteries they are incredibly quiet in comparison to a traditional diesel truck.
“One of the only major complaints we have is that they’re so quiet that the customers can’t hear it coming through the neighborhood first thing in the morning regular trash out at the last minute," said Chad Gordon.
