Universal Waste Systems (UWS), a refuse and recycling company that operates facilities in Los Angeles, Pomona and Santa Fe Springs, Calif., recently deployed 14 TerraPro compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles from Mack Trucks. Mack dealer TEC of Southern California facilitated the acquisition.
UWS, which operates a total fleet of 155 trucks, is bringing CNG-powered trucks online largely to help meet California air-quality regulations and contractual obligations, according to Matt Blackburn, general manager of UWS in Santa Fe Springs.
‘Transitioning to the CNG trucks is a large expense,’ he says. ‘We're putting in new infrastructure to fuel the trucks. We need to have enough capacity on the trucks so they can get through their daily routes. On top of that we're taking trucks that are not fully amortized and transitioning them to run on CNG.’
Blackburn notes that Mack supported UWS in other aspects of the shift to CNG. ‘Mack has come up with a lot of good programs and helped us get grant money to pay for the trucks,’ he says.
