Taking out the trash: City adds new garbage trucks

City of Temple Solid Waste Services will have a few more resources in their fleet as the City Council recently approved the purchase of three new refuse trucks.

“With the growth in Central Texas, Temple is seeing a boom in both commercial businesses and homes being built,” Solid Waste Division Director Justin Brantley said. “The purchases of the trucks will help us keep up with demand while having reliable equipment available to do so.”

On Jan. 27, the City Council approved the purchase of two front-load and one residential side-load garbage trucks.

The sideload truck will replace an aging truck that serves residential curbside pickup.

“These trucks are the residential trucks used to collect both garbage and recycling at our citizens residences,” Brantley said. “We currently deploy seven garbage trucks and five recycling trucks four days a week.”

Later this year, the Solid Waste Division plans to add an eighth residential garbage route to make pickup schedules more efficient.

“Adding an eighth route will help the residential garbage team finish within the 10-hour schedule they currently work,” Brantley said.

The additional route will not cause any changes to residents’ pickup schedules.

“The frontload trucks will replace aging trucks in our fleet and will be used for our commercial customers,” Brantley said. “These are the trucks that pick up the commercial dumpsters for all of our businesses, restaurants, and apartments here in Temple.”

The frontload division consists of five daily commercial garbage routes and one cardboard recycling route. The garbage routes run six days a week to keep up with demand from restaurants mainly. With this amount of use, the trucks need to be replaced every seven years.