Houston, Texas-based Waste Management is celebrating two significant milestones, having opened its 100th natural gas fueling station and having officially deployed 6,000 natural gas trucks, representing one of the largest heavy-duty fleets of its kind in North America.
Industry representatives and local and state officials joined the company at a ceremony in Oklahoma City to dedicate the new fueling station.
“Waste Management’s mission is to maximize resource value while minimizing environmental impact so that our customers, our company, our economy and our environment can thrive,” says Jim Trevathan, Waste Management executive vice president and chief operating officer. “Today’s milestone is certainly a stellar example of this… and we plan to do even more!”
Waste Management says it aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and improve the efficiency of its on-road fleet efficiency by 15% by 2020, based on 2007 levels. The goal was achieved in 2011, and with the increasing adoption of natural gas vehicles, the company continues to exceed this goal each year.
According to Marty Tufte, Waste Management corporate fleet director, “Waste Management invests in building our own fueling infrastructure to refuel our vehicles, while making CNG available to other commercial fleets and individuals.”
With this latest addition, Waste Management operates 100 fueling stations in North America – 25 of which are open to the public. Notably, the company builds, finances, owns and operates its own fueling stations.
Waste Management says its trucks connect to fuel systems at the station and are refueled via a slow overnight fueling process. At the company’s public-access fueling stations, dedicated fast-fill pumps serve both commercial and consumer vehicles.
According to trade group NGVAmerica, the company has seen a five-fold increase in the number of natural gas trucks deployed and the number of fueling stations in just five years.
NGVAmerica goes on to note that the newly deployed trucks are powered by Cummins Westport’s low-NOx natural gas engines, which are more than 80% cleaner than the current federal emission standards, and that the company has also committed to largely using renewable natural gas, which offsets greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 80%.
“This milestone is a testament to Waste Management’s commitment to natural gas vehicles and to the environmental, economic and energy security benefits they provide,” says Kathryn Clay, interim executive director for NGVAmerica. “Waste Management’s leadership shows the way toward a cleaner transportation system based on natural gas fuels.”
“NGVAmerica today offers it congratulations to a true industry leader,” says NGVAmerica Chairman Mitchell Pratt. “The benefits of natural gas and its ability to transform transportation in America while reducing foreign energy dependency and creating jobs is undeniable.”
