Re: How about...?
How far can an electric bin lorry travel on one charge?How much of the bin lorry would be space for batteries and how much would be space for rubbish?
How safe will the batteries be in a vehicle that has bin collectors throwing bags of rubbish at it?
Until about forty years ago, there was a thing called a "milk float" driven by a "milkman" who stopped at every house to deliver full bottles of milk and collect empty ones for refilling. In retrospect it was very environmentally friendly, but the market was eventually killed off by people having cars to drive to supermarkets to fill up on cheap disposable plastic containers of milk.
Milk floats were invariably electric - lead acid batteries in those days - and had the same sort of journey profile as a bin lorry. Very frequent start/stops, which electric motors are good at - diesel either constantly starts/stops or continuously idles - either way an efficient pollution generator. Milk floats usually travelled at roughly walking speed, just like a bin lorry. Although the vehicles were fairly small, I expect the load was disproportionally large as milk is very dense at about a ton per cubic metre.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
