City of London's waste fleet to be fully electric

The waste collection service, street cleansing and ancillary services contract, which began on 6 April, will see the introduction of a number of tech-based solutions to enhance waste and recycling services in the City of London – also known as the Square Mile, and improve the management of its public roads and public footpaths. 

The electric refuse collection vehicles (RCVs) will use on-board weighing equipment to digitally record bin weights at residential properties, enabling recycling performance to be efficiently calculated. All vehicles will be digitally tracked to monitor and auto-allocate cleansing tasks depending on geographical location and capacity. And street cleaners will carry hand-held devices for on-the-go reporting and job completion.

The City of London contract will also deliver 74 solar auto-compacting bigBelly bins, which send notifications to collection crews when they are full, allowing more waste to be collected.

The new portfolio will see Veolia managing the following areas in the City of London: domestic waste collection, commercial waste, recycling collections, street cleansing, winter maintenance, special event preparation and clean-up operations, vehicle maintenance and gully servicing.

Jeremy Simons, chair of the City Corporation’s Port Health and Environmental Services Committee, said: “This contract aims to exceed the high standards people expect of our waste and cleansing services whether they work, visit or live in the City.

“The Square Mile is a world-leading international financial centre with over half a million daily workers, 7,500 residents and 18.4 million visitors a year."

Gavin Graveson, executive vice-president of Veolia UK & Ireland, added: “The new tech-driven service will bring significant benefits to the community and the environment. The new fleet of electric vehicles will play a significant role in improving local air quality, with real-time data technologies delivering greater synergies between collections and street cleansing operations."

Veolia was appointed following a competitive tender process, with the electric fleet to be mobilised within the first year of contract.