The REMONDIS waste and recycling team in Southeast Queensland have a long-standing relationship with Volvo Group Australia (VGA) and have relied on their trusty Mack Tridents since 2014. Now they’re progressively replacing them with the new Mack Anthem.
REMONDIS trucks are a common sight on Australia’s roads, as the company’s rapidly growing fleet of 560+ heavy vehicles haul thousands of tonnes of recyclable materials to processing plants and non- recyclable waste to disposal sites every year. Southeast Queensland is no exception.
“We’ve got sixteen Tridents from 2014 and two Anthems from 2021,” says Sarah Collins, Resource Recovery Manager at the REMONDIS Swanbank Renewable Energy and Waste Management Facility, around 30 kilometres west of Brisbane.
“They’ve been the backbone of our local fleet for nine years,” she adds, “but we work them pretty hard, so we’ve decided to start replacing them with Anthems before we wear them out.”
Vice President of Mack Trucks Australia, Tom Chapman says the Mack Anthem is a natural and exciting progression for REMONDIS in renewing and improving the efficiencies of their fleet.
“The Mack Anthem has built a strong reputation for itself in terms of fuel-efficiency. Paired with mDRIVE-HD with deep reduction gears, the benefits are compounding in applications such as this one where controlled manoeuvrability on sometimes uneven, steep or low traction surfaces is critical,” he says.
“For us, success is really forged in the strong relationships we build with our customers. REMONDIS perform the waste removal functions of both our factory and Head Office operations at Volvo Group Australia, so there’s great trust in the partnership and it swings both ways.”
The trucks travel between the Swanbank site and transfer stations at Rocklea and Northgate, making up to six trips a day, five-and-a-half days a week. Averaging about 60,000 kilometres a year, the Macks are hauling single trailer and B-Double payloads in side-tippers, with net weights approaching 36 tonnes.
“The fleet is NHVAS Mass and Maintenance Accredited and is enrolled in IAP so that we can operate Higher Mass Limits (HML),” says Sarah, “so we’re maximising our payloads on every trip.”
Commercial customers bring loads of waste to the transfer stations, where they’re compacted and loaded onto the trucks.
“At the transfer stations the trucks drive into the loading tunnel at the end of the pit,” says Sarah, “and we drop the compacted waste into the tippers. We have a weighbridge in the tunnel and another on the way out to ensure our loads comply with approved axle mass limits.”
This kind of efficiency in loading is matched at the other end at Swanbank, where the Macks manoeuvre to the edge of the landfill and simply open up the side-tippers to empty them.
“The side tippers just open up like a big mouth, it’s very cool,” says Sarah, “and they’ve made a huge improvement in our productivity. We used to use trailers with walking floors, but the side-tippers are significantly faster to unload.”
As the trucks do most of their travelling on the motorway, the real issue is getting the trailers up to the top of the disposal site.
“It’s a steep slope, and if the weather is bad it can take a lot of low-end torque to get the load up there,” says Sarah, “the Anthems don’t have any trouble at all. The mDRIVE-HD with an extended range of deep reduction gears, is ideally configured to climb steep slopes – a key safety consideration for us – so they’re more than up to the task. They’ve also proven to be fuel-efficient, which is increasingly important to the business.”
As the trucks only do day trips, the Anthems aren’t fitted with sleeper cabs, but VGA spared nothing that could make the drivers more comfortable and safe in the fit-out, including the inclusion of Mack’s Full Safety Pack says Sarah.
“Our drivers spend a lot of time in them, and VGA delivered a complete product, fully outfitted. Our drivers are really chuffed with the new Anthems and are happy we’re buying more of them.”
With five scheduled for delivery in 2023, the Mack Anthems will soon be a familiar sight on the highway.
“We’ve been using Volvo Group products in South-East Queensland for over twenty years now,” says Sarah, “and they’ve proven to be reliable and an ideal fit for the task. We’re looking forward to bringing the rest of the new Anthems into the local fleet and enjoying the continued support of Volvo Group Australia.”
