Port Stephens Garbage & Recycling
In April 2021 I spent a couple days across the Hunter region to video a handful of side arms working in a select few councils. After early success in Lake Mac and Maitland, I enjoyed a peaceful 10min drive along a rural road as I made my way to the large town of Raymond Terrace, which falls under Port Stephens Council. This location receives kerbside collections on a Tuesday, also containing both A/B recycling weeks, so the multiple trucks I wanted to get were easily available to me. At the time of my arrival, no trucks were in sight, being that period when they’re away tipping off the first loads and having their half hour breaks, so I cruised around killing time, checking the place out and targeted the uncollected streets which would provide the best footage potential. Eventually I noticed the trucks returning to their runs and things got underway!
First up I tracked down unit 767 flipping the red lid garbage bins, appearing to have done rural work prior judging by the dirt all over the tailgate! Next I crossed the border into the recycle zone, discovering the area I’d scoped out in advance already having been hooked into by truck 771. There was still a bit left to get done but, at least until 775 showed up and started grabbing yellow lid bins as well. Suddenly I was under the pump trying to get what I wanted and unfortunately took much less of a bigger 33m than I hoped. I jumped back over to the garbage only zone and found 765 on the job, shot a bit of it as well and finally called it quits. To think I was in Raymond Terrace for over 3 hours and all that stuffing around resulted in one 12min video! When I created this there wasn’t much to see of the Port Stephens trucks on YouTube, but lots has since been posted. Be sure to watch this in the 720p setting for better picture quality and keep an eye out for the friendly dog that wanted to say hello =D
It's been a long time since I posted any action from Port Stephens, way back then I’d videoed one of the single pass vehicles operated by Solo Resource Recovery. I was on the verge of driving up there in the first half of 2015 to get further and final footage of the various Solo machines in local operation, but at the last second I postponed my plans, and sadly the intended return trip didn’t happen in time. I’ll forever hate myself for not getting that additional footage to document the then current services, including more of the divided SPARRC system, something of an ex-SCORR that was in use and anything of 1 of 2 standard SOLO systems for garbage only week. Might’ve even gotten the old Kangaroo Island SPARRC that came up from SA! It’s even more annoying the fact that all these trucks had finger plate arms, could’ve had more comb lift action to share...
July 2015 marked the start of the handed over contract with SUEZ (now Veolia), where a fleet of nine regular Superior Pak Iveco side loaders were introduced. Brand new Sulo KSB bins got rolled out across the LGA, with each household receiving a pair of 240Ls for waste and recycling. The council also changed the scheduled bulk general and green waste clean-ups to an on-call booked service, with a Bucher Dennis rear loader in charge of that job. Amongst a mostly ACCO fleet one Dennis side lift exists, which stars briefly in this video, having just taken over from a permanent recycle truck written off in an accident. A trio of Merc Econics with Superior Pak bodies recently joined the group too, which handle the fortnightly garden waste runs that begun in July 2023. For some 20 years Port Stephens was sending its domestic rubbish stream to a Bedminster treatment facility for organics recovery and composting, but in 2018 the EPA revoked the exemptions related to mixed waste organics outputs and essentially crippled this recovery process.