Truckin’ along quietly with garbage to boot

FAUN's Mario Ringl, Neil Bone and Brett Jones from Wastech and Thomas Hoffmann from FAUN with the new trucks. 145218 Picture: STEWART CHAMBERS

By CASEY NEILL

QUIET new garbage trucks and street sweepers will hit the road through Hallam’s Wastech Engineering.
The FAUN vehicles recently arrived from Germany and are a Variopress Rear Loader and a Viajet 6 Street Sweeper.
Wastech marketing co-ordinator Catherine Gardner-Gaskin said the trucks were unique in the market for a number of reasons.
“They are really quiet; with the German focus on the environment they tick a number of boxes environmentally; and they have some innovative engineering – all of which combined provide great payload, efficient running costs and ease of maintenance,” she said.
“One of the things that is interesting is that these trucks are so quiet the garbage and street sweeper rounds can be done at any time without breaking noise restrictions, which will make garbage collection quicker and out of normal traffic hours earning great efficiencies for waste collection.”
Recently Wastech acquired Tieman Field Service and Tieman Tail Lifts, increasing its workforce from 90 to 150-plus employees with 60 mobile service vehicles nationally servicing the waste, recycling, tail lift and materials handling industries.
The company has also opened a $3 million purpose-built service centre in Hallam.
“Growing requirements for equipment repairs and servicing meant that Wastech had outgrown the previous service centre site and needed to move on to something bigger,” Ms Gardner-Gaskin said.
It has 1360 square metres of working floor space, 32 full-sized work bays, a 10-tonne overhead crane and 3036 square metres of equipment storage space.
“Wastech now has greater capacity to deliver the required equipment maintenance demands of the waste industry, both private and government across greater Melbourne,” Ms Gardner-Gaskin said.
“The centre will also become the national service administrative hub responsible for servicing more than 5000 equipment items throughout Australia.
“It caters for 24/7 assistance, ensuring that no site is ever left unattended.”
Wastech’s head office and manufacturing facility remain in Hallam.