Why use two when one will do?

Christchurch’s newest rubbish truck has a trick up its sleeve.

The low-emission diesel truck is the first in Waste Management NZ Limited’s Christchurch fleet to have two separate chambers, which means that it can separately collect either rubbish, recycling or organics at one time without cross-contamination.

Each chamber can hold 1.5 tonnes of material.

Having two chambers means that the contents from the different bins is kept separate. These need to be kept separate because if there is cross-contamination organics cannot be turned into compost and the material from the yellow bin cannot be accepted for recycling.

 “The advantage of this new truck is that it can be more flexible in how we collect a combination of bins in one go, which is a real bonus,’’ says Christchurch City Council Acting Resource Recovery Manager Ged Clink.

“It will help reduce emissions and fuel costs. This new smaller split body truck is going to be particularly useful on restrictive access streets. Our contractor will be able to use one truck to empty different bins without risking material contamination.”