Tracking your trash could save Danville cash

By: GoDanRiver Staff | GoDanRiver.com
Published: August 12, 2008

The Public Works Department is looking into some high-tech trash technology that could cut down fuel costs.

Using GPS technology, a South Carolina firm has developed a data collection system that could help waste management truck drivers run the most fuel-, cost- and time-efficient routes.

Public Works provides refuse collection, yard waste collection and metal disposal, along with other services that all require their own particular trucks.

Refuse collectors have to travel the entire city, but more specific operations only really need to go where there’s a build-up of whatever it is they’re responsible for picking up.

The new GPS system, the brainchild of Jim Oswald, a former IT consultant for the city of Clemson, S.C., and business partner Taji Richardson, would help track where that might be.

Refuse collectors would take a handheld device that has software containing different categories on their routes, and whenever they see particular pile-ups, they will log that location into the GPS device, said Tom Spicer, Danville’s director of sanitation.

At the end of the day, Spicer said, the driver goes into the office and uploads the information onto a computer where it’s tracked on a map.

That way, a bucket truck could just go to where it’s needed, saving time and fuel, he said.

The GPS system already is being used in Clemson, S.C., USA Today reports, where the city administrator told the newspaper the device is saving his city about 350 gallons of diesel fuel a month.

Danville Public Works Director Rick Drazenovich said the department is still in the preliminary research stages with the technology and certainly wouldn’t start using it this year.

He said the city would eventually like to be able to use technology that allows the information to be loaded directly onto a computer system on the bucket trucks, which would prevent drivers from having to go back to a computer at the office to load the information.

• Contact Sarah Arkin at sarkin@registerbee.com or (434) 791-7983.