City of Greater Geelong employee Garry Dahlstrom puts the new state-of-the-art Hino street sweeper to work. Image: City of Greater Geelong.
Street sweepers are a common and important part of any local government fleet to counter urban littering problems, and Victoria’s City of Greater Geelong has looked to Hino to deliver in that department.
The council has added a new state-of-the-art Hino hydrostatic Scarab Merlin machine to its existing fleet, which is already in service almost 24 hours a day across the city.
According to the council, this new, high-tech machine is ‘Euro-V’ compliant and “extremely fuel efficient”, but with low exhaust emissions.
Infrastructure Portfolio holder Cr Lindsay Ellis said the addition of the new machine would add significantly to council’s ability to maintain clean streets right across the municipality.
Mr Ellis said council’s mechanised sweeper fleet now had five ‘large’ sweepers and one more compact ‘small’ sweeper which was used to clean tighter areas in the Geelong CBD.
“These crews are hard at work from 5am each morning of the week,” Cr Ellis said.
“The mechanised sweepers work double shifts – 5am to 2pm and then 2pm to 10pm, to make the best use of their capabilities and get the best value-for-dollar for our ratepayers.”
“As well as the sweeping the streets in the CBD, the mechanised sweepers operate in all the major shopping centres across the municipality on a weekly basis,” Mr Ellis said.
Mr Ellis said all sealed roads across the municipality are swept approximately every three months on a set roster system.
“The total tonnage of sweeper waste across the municipality is approximately 3,000 tonnes per year,” he said.
He said council also has a dedicated Geelong CBD cleaning crew, the members of which start at 5am each morning, “litter-picking” and sweeping the CBD footpaths of rubbish that may have accumulated overnight.
