Dubai Municipality puts its first fully electric rubbish truck on the road
The new compactor carries up to 11 tonnes of waste in a 19 cubic metre body and runs up to 150km on one charge.
Dubai Municipality has added its first fully electric waste collection vehicle to the fleet that empties the city's bins. The compactor truck can carry up to 11 tonnes of waste in a 19 cubic metre body and travel up to 150 kilometres on a single charge, the municipality said on Sunday.
The truck is built to work with more than one collection system, so it can serve the different kinds of bins and containers used across Dubai's neighbourhoods rather than a single route type. The municipality presented it as part of its work to modernise the fleet, make public cleaning more efficient and cut emissions, in line with Dubai's climate neutrality and clean energy targets. It did not say how many more electric trucks will follow, or when.
Waste lorries are some of the hardest vehicles in a city to replace with electric ones: they are heavy, stop and start hundreds of times a shift, and run their hydraulic compactors all day. A range of 150km is enough for a typical daily round inside the city, which is why municipalities often start their move to electric with this kind of truck. Abu Dhabi's waste company, Tadweer, put an electric collection truck into service in 2023, and Dubai Municipality has already tried smaller electric vehicles, from electric bikes for its cleaning teams to a self-driving electric cleaner tested on the beach cycle tracks.
The new truck also arrives as the way Dubai collects household rubbish is about to change. Last month the municipality said it plans to give homes two bins each and phase out the shared communal containers in many areas, which means more stops and more frequent, shorter rounds.
For residents, nothing changes on bin day for now: collection times and the bins themselves stay the same, and one electric truck will not be noticed on most streets. What you may notice over time is a quieter, fume-free lorry on early morning rounds. Questions about collection in your area go to the municipality's 800900 line or the Dubai 24/7 app.