Lake Macquarie Recycling & FOGO
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- Early on a Tuesday morning in April 2021, I found myself in the suburb of Belmont briefly admiring the sunrise across the waters of Lake Mac, before getting to business tracking down two Solo Resource Recovery side loaders serving duties under the Lake Macquarie City Council collection contract. Very quickly I locked sights on young unit 2801 which had been sent out to do weekly organics collections, seen in the video servicing what appeared to be the more affluent part of town. Straight after I went across the eastern side of Belmont after the sun was up in the sky, soon discovering older unit 2234 swiftly emptying recycling bins along a group of straight roads off the Pacific Hwy. Many thanks to both operators for being cool with me taking some shots and for keeping the action going, made my mission fairly easy and enjoyable to achieve.
To highlight modern kerbside collections, I wanted to make sure I got the trucks in an area with the yellow and lime green lidded bins put out on the same week. Lake Mac is the first and currently only council in the Hunter region with a food organics and garden organics (FOGO) collection system in place, while the others deal with just garden waste or have no green waste service at all. The council introduced the green lid bin in 2013, which was initially collected fortnightly and only for garden organics, before a further introductory phase in 2018 saw food organics also becoming accepted and collections turning weekly. FOGO material is taken to and processed at the advanced Remondis composting facility constructed at the council’s Awaba waste management centre.
The long-running Hunter Resource Recovery (HRR) initiative remains in place, with Lake Mac, Cessnock, Maitland and Singleton councils in a regional partnership with Solo RR to provide kerbside recycling services. I previously videoed the former Solo split trucks that did Lake Mac, Maitland and Cessnock, whereas this video shows one of the new side loaders that were put out there for the commencement of a fresh contract in 2013. A good 10 of these 30m Rico/Iveco vehicles exist for the HRR operation, which deliver recycling to the Solo depot at Gateshead before being transferred by walking floor trailers to a Sydney MRF. Plenty of the once divided OTTO bins from the 1990s remain in use, but now the council also provides 140L and 360L recycling bin options to residents.
I’ve never had many videos to post of trucks run by Solo RR, not having any of their operations near home or visiting many of their contracted locations during my adventures. When I made this specific trip to the Hunter Valley, one objective was to catch some Solo trucks on camera, which is what made this uploaded video possible, and yet again is the last Solo video I have left to share! Prior to producing this Lake Mac video, I aimed to catch the older generation mini ACCO side loader that did the Wednesday collections in Dora Creek, but sadly it was retired before I made it there, which was a great loss for me. I also always wish I got more of Solo’s Port Stephens fleet... all the good stuff is history now.
Really neat video Mitch. I am amazed at the speed of these truck's arms, especially the new one. There is a video of a FOGO truck like these ones and that was flippin' awesome! I think that more and more councils should and will start rolling out bin options as it is much more environmentally friendly and benefits the odd filmer here and there. I have noticed councils around me rolling out in large numbers and following the floods in Lismore, the council seems to have given all the affected houses Mastec or Sulo 360ls.
Now, onto trucks. I could call you equally lucky in the way that you got both the oldest truck there and the newest, which is hard to do in most councils as all trucks are the same age. It is a real bummer what time does and I am now scrambling to film Kyogle before that goes, not just that but I also worry about Urana and what has happened to that truck, and what has changed, if anything has, although being so rural, I doubt anything would have. In the Northern Rivers Region, all we have left are the ex- Lismore Isuzu in Richmond Valley, the Richmond Valley Iveco Raptor S2 and Lismore's 2010 MJ Iveco, all of which don't have long left (and one barely survived the floods). The waste industry just isn't the same as it used to be and all the trucks we grew up with have seen many owners and many have seen the scrapyards.
Nice video once again man, I hope to see more footage.
Finally catching up with your videos haha
Looked forward to catching up on this video, been ages since I‘ve watched some LakeMac action, somehow wasn‘t even aware they had Fogo by now lol
Great job capturing the Solo units. I remember your luck with LaceMac hasn‘t been great in the past haha
I have to admit there are few side loaders that are as entertaining to watch as fast Solo trucks. This video went by so fast and kept me entertaining the whole way through, there‘s just some kind of magic watching a Solo truck almost aggressively flipping lids. Maybe because it‘s not often for them to flip lids. Although I did notice in a lot of Solo videos over the past year that Solo seems to have gone in the lid flipping direction for all their contracts which to me was very surprising to see. Even their new Stralis trucks mostly flip lids like in Darebin which I definitely didn‘t expect from Solo.
I have to say these fast Solo SLs are probably some of my most favourite trucks to watch. There‘s just something about the design of the truck and the way the arm flips the lids. Funny how the Fogo trucks was opening them quite smoothly while the recycling truck slammed them a bit more.
You got some great shots too, love the early morning action with little noise except the arm banging against the metal when getting pulled in. And of course the occasional seagulls at 3:30ish haha
Was also good to get a good look at both the recycling trucks and the Fogo trucks. I take it the recycling trucks are already 10 years old by this point, do you know how long they are still going before the contract is getting renewed. I know Newcastle gets a new contract later this year but I haven‘t heard any news about the HRR contract. Also have to ask how the fleet is composed of nowadays since they also gotten some new Stralis. Are those just extra units for the Fogo contract or have they replaced any older units? LakeMac council also seems to have gotten a new batch of trucks. I do wonder how they transisioned from weekly garbage to Fogo seeing the council work was essentially cut in half. Wonder if some of the council drivers moved over to Solo seeing council doesn‘t need as many trucks as before now. Wonder why in-house didn‘t just switch to Fogo and give Solo the general waste collection in order to keep everything running as it was prior to Fogo with none of both parties having to sell trucks/buy extra trucks. Just some thinking from my side haha
Anyway, another top class Mitch production with the different camera angles, keeps you entertained the whole way through the video. Got not much more to say. Great job, your videos never disappoint!
Cheers
Thanks very much for your comment. Yep most or all of the recycling trucks are a good 10 years old now, not sure if any were built slightly later than the rest though. I believe the regional recycle contract goes for another year to mid 2024, maybe another extension is on the table but. Got absolutely no idea regarding those latest Stralis cab trucks, not sure how many they have and exactly why they got them... in a way I sort of don't care either haha I get what you're saying about council doing organics and Solo taking over garbage, that makes perfect sense... probably some kind of politics or who knows what other motive behind why it didn't happen. I'm sure somebody out there can provide some reasoning and explain what potential changes occurred regarding staff and fleet - something I'm curious about myself.
oh gosh this guy is fast 😂
Nice one Mitch
Great video mate! Im just wondering what you mean by the older generation mini acco side loader? Didn't think that lake mac had mini trucks.
There was mini truck #1216 from VIC operating in the area on Wednesdays doing Dora Creek organics and recycling, I'm told there are some low bridges there the big trucks can't get under, I think it also did some commercial recycling around the Hunter. Nowadays the low height 6x4 Bayside garbage truck does the job, if there's only one of them it'd be unit #2208.
@@AussieGarbo Ah right, im kinda surprised i havent seen the truck tho because i norm see most trucks running to Awaba waste facility when im at school. I have taken a few photos of #2208 doing greens. You reckon theres some photos of #1216 out there?
@@Aaron-fz4fp Can't recall when that #2208 took over, must be about 2 years ago now though. #1216 just had a plain green body and white cab, no signage of any kind that I'm aware of, one of those real small body side loaders with a grab lifter, 2002 model ACCO. I don't remember which contract I was told it used to do in VIC originally, but I'm thinking either Baw Baw or Frankston...
I wish more trucks in the USA went this fast
Nice Mitch
Nice video
Nice video, is there any old OTTO recycling bins in this video