SITA vehicles switch to soy biodiesel

Customers in and around the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) are now being provided with a cleaner, green collection service by SITA Environmental Solutions (SITA).

Following in the tracks of SITA’s Campbelltown service centre in Sydney, which switched its 21 recycling and general waste collection vehicles to soy diesel in January this year, SITA’s Hume Service Centre in the ACT has turned its fleet onto the benefits of the new fuel blend.

Recently, the site installed a 26,500-litre volume safe fill capacity tank which will provide each of the site’s 21 collection vehicles and four light vehicles with a premium quality soy diesel B20 fuel - a naturally derived diesel substitute.

The self-bunded tank is equipped with its own bowser with high flow dispensing capability and computerised back-to-base fuel management and data collection system.

SITA Branch Manager Jason Stewart conservatively estimates his annual consumption will be around 480,000 litres of the B20 fuel, which equates to 96,000 litres of Soybiodiesel B100.

“The use of the soy biodiesel will result in a saving of approximately 270 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emissions into the atmosphere every year … that is the same as removing 65 cars off Canberra‘s roads each year just from our Hume depot alone,” said Stewart.

“Like our branches in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide that run vehicles on alternative fuel sources, our trucks will now produce fewer emissions and be more efficient.

“The cost to purchase the biodiesel is the same as normal diesel, so the decision to switch over was based purely on the positive environmental benefits for both SITA and our customers,” Stewart stated.

The soy diesel fuel blend is distributed by National Biofuels Group. Soybiodiesel B100 is made wholly from the waste by-product of soybean processing.

Soybeans are grown for high-protein animal feed (soybean meal). The soybean oil is removed during this process as a waste product and converted to a fuel that can be directly substituted for petroleum diesel. It is essentially free of sulfur and aromatics.

The next SITA service centre to go live with soy biodiesel vehicles will be in Nowra. After securing the Shoalhaven contract earlier this year, SITA plans to install a soy biodiesel tank to service the Shoalhaven City Council contract from July 2011.

Other SITA sites that run soy biodiesel-powered vehicles are the Dandenong service centre in Melbourne and the Wetherill Park service centre in Sydney. The latter has over 40 trucks and has used over 1,000,000 litres of soy biodiesel B20 fuel since 2009.