Sign of the times? Where once all municipal vehicles were British-built those days are long gone. It's now all about the right truck for the job--at the right price. And following extensive trials, Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council has chosen Isuzu 'Forward' N75.190 7.5-tonners with rear-loading NTM refuse collection bodies, as the primary bin-waggon for its new residential recycling service in
The 11 Isuzus have been put to work on kitchen waste and cardboard kerbside collections. And in case you ask Blaenau Gwent Council is the first local authority in
Neil Hughes, Transport Manager at Blaenau Gwent Council tells me: "During the tender process, Isuzu came out on top because of their willingness to meet our specific requirements and especially concerning the wheelbase modification on these new vehicles. In addition, the Isuzu/NTM combination is much lighter than the other options we looked at, giving us an impressive payload of just over 2 tonnes. Naturally, this enables us to achieve far greater efficiency on each vehicle's daily route."
With an estimated working life of five years or more, the new Isuzu recycling vehicles are based at the main Blaenau Gwent Council depot in Brynmawr and are working on daily routes that cover a 35-mile radius including the Heads of the Valleys towns of Ebbw Vale, Tredegar, Abertillery and Brynmawr. Wil they be picking up your rubbish Andrew?
Monmouthshire County Council have provided a weekly collection for garden waste,cardboard and food waste for some time using Dennis Elite 6x2s in a special green livery depicting a large worm wearing a hat! Glass, cans and paper are also collected weekly by MCR using an extremely long wheelbase Isuzu. Incidentally Blaenau Gwent's glass, cans and paper collection uses blue liveried vehicles with the fleetname and logo 'Tidy Trev'.