After students at Common Ground High School spent Monday morning with the state’s top environmental official discussing how to make money while saving the Earth, the lesson came to life in Edgewood Park — in the form of the city’s new fuel-efficient, money-saving garbage truck.
Two Monday morning events on the west side of town highlighted the connection between being green and making green. At Common Ground High School, state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Dan Esty spoke about how to create economic incentives for environmental conservation. Then, at a parking lot in Edgewood Park, the city unveiled its new $388,000 hybrid energy fuel truck, which will save the city up to $5,000 and use 30 percent less fuel.
The morning’s synchronicity began just after 9 a.m. at Common Ground, the environmentally themed charter school on Springside Avenue, alongside West Rock State Park.
About 35 students gathered in a darkened room — lined with racks of flourescent-lit baby vegetable plants — in the school’s “farmhouse” to receive a lesson from Esty. He was there as part of the DEP’s “Teach Out” series, which sends DEP staff to schools during April and May to give lessons and hold discussions on environmental topics.
Esty.
Esty rolled up in a Toyota Prius and launched into his lesson with an opening question: “How do we get people to do the right thing” when it comes to the environment?
The answer, as it emerged through the ensuing discussion, was threefold. First, the government can enforce environmental regulations through fines and it can create incentives towards conservation through other regulations. Second, business can lead the way by finding ways to turn a profit off of green activities, like environmentally friendly dry cleaning, or solar panel installation. And third, you can change “baseline values,” that is, change cultural attitudes towards things like litter and gas consumption.
While discussing the second option, Esty took the opportunity to plug his book “Green To Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage.” He donated a copy of the tome to the Common Ground library.
There are “huge opportunities” to create businesses as part of the new green economy, Esty said. “I hope some of you will step up to them.”
Junior Rheji Freeman (right) and his classmates took part in the lesson.
That stepping up is already underway at Common Ground, where students in an “Environmental Ventures” class, have begun a number of money-making green businesses, from selling bicycle-powered smoothies to school-grown baby greens.
“This really is the future of the economy,” said Jeremy Stone, who teaches the class. After Esty’s presentation, Stone and senior Kejohn Ervin discussed how to bring environmentally friendly practices to even more areas of life, like recycling sneakers, or cutting down on packaging for flat-screen TVs, and making it work financially.
An hour later and a mile and a half away, city officials unveiled one way the city is greening up its operations, and saving money in the process.
At 11 a.m., a gleaming white garbage truck stood in the parking lot near the tennis courts in Edgewood Park. It was so new you could smell the fresh rubber of the tires.
Apart from its youth, the new garbage truck is distinguished from its 12 city counterparts by its hydraulic hybrid energy system. Giovanni Zinn, an environmental consultant with the city’s Office of Sustainability, explained how it works, and how it will save money.
The new truck includes a number of hydraulic cylinders mounted to the chassis. Braking the truck activates a pump that pressurizes the hydraulic fluid. That energy is then unleashed through a hydraulic motor to start the truck moving again, reducing the low-gear strain on the truck’s diesel motor. It’s similar to the way a Toyota Prius charges its battery by harnessing the electricity generates during braking, Zinn said.
Zinn said it’s an ideal system for stop-and-go vehicles like garbage trucks, which are constantly gearing up and slowing down to collect garbage up and down city streets. “That’s when the system really shines.”
DPW’s Edwin Martinez explained the truck to Westville Aldermen Greg Dildine and his 4-year-old mini-me, Ross.
The new hybrid truck will be 30 percent more fuel efficient, getting four miles to the gallon, rather than three, Zinn said. That means $5,000 saved annually in fuel costs. The new system will also extend the trucks brakes four times longer than on regular trucks. The new truck has an advanced exhaust filter that takes out 95 percent of asthma-causing particulate emissions otherwise released; those filters will be installed on all the city’s garbage trucks.
The truck cost $70,000 more than a regular truck. The difference was carried by a grant from state Department of Transportation’s Clean Fuel Vehicle Program. The new truck is expected to last over a decade, Zinn said. It’s likely to go into service Tuesday or Wednesday, picking up garbage in Newhallville, said Edwin Martinez, refuse supervisor for the Department of Public Works.
In the future, the city plans to replace regular diesel garbage trucks with hybrids as they come to the end of their use.
Mayor John DeStefano highlighted the city’s other environmental initiatives, including 14 hybrid cars in the city’s fleet, solar-powered lights on a police cruiser, and retrofitting of school buses to control pollution. At the end of the press conference, he drove away in his Toyota Prius. The city purchased that car for him in 2005, making him the first mayor east of the Rockies to drive a hybrid, according to a press release.
A green logo distinguishes the hybrid truck from others in the fleet.