“This is actually a big priority because over 50 percent of our emissions are coming from transportation in the city of Anchorage,” Kilcoyne said. There’s also road infrastructure more broadly - particularly since the sprawling municipality is such a car-centric city. But a big one is the fleet of cars, trucks, buses, snowplows and lumbering red garbage trucks under local government control. If you’re a city like Anchorage, there are only so many resources you control that relate to energy usage. “One of the things we’re doing is looking at ways we can electrify our fleet,” Kilcoyne explained. As the Energy and Sustainability Manager for SWS, it is Kilcoyne’s job to find ways for municipal entities to save money and energy. It’s an inefficiency that, for Shaina Kilcoyne, creates an opportunity. Mostly in the form of fuel for the hulking 22-ton trucks that crawl up streets and alleys.Ĭontreras’s trucks get, on average, just two-and-a-half miles to the gallon. The city-run garbage and recycling programs use a lot of energy. “Summertime they like to throw (out) a lotta fish carcasses,” Contreras said of less pleasant residential refuse.
The job gives him a unique perspective on a an intimate side of the city. But for the last 13 years he’s driven garbage trucks for Solid Waste Services, the municipality’s trash collection utility.
#Sws green garbage truck professional
Originally from the Dominican Republic, 65-year-old Contreras came to Alaska after a career playing professional baseball. On a recent Friday morning, Rafael Contreras sat in the cab of his garbage truck, toggling a joystick with his left hand to carefully pinch and lift recycling bins with a massive hydraulic arm on the truck’s right flank. The moves come at a time when cities and states across the country are clashing with federal environmental policies, and developing their own climate initiatives.īut how much can a city like Anchorage actually do to curb carbon emissions? The administration of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz is moving forward on a new climate action plan, and simultaneously pursuing measures to reduce the city’s carbon emissions. A Solid Waste Services truck at the tipping floor in Anchorage (Photo courtesy of Suzanna Caldwell, SWS)Īnchorage is going green.
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