The Company fleet includes over 140 vehicles, which are regularly registered in the National Register of Environmental Companies.

 

SAGER’s fleet has been developing in line with the Company’s steps forwards: the most challenging task has always been waste collection for consortia of local authorities, thus transcending single municipal areas.

 

Since the beginning, the fleet has been composed by 3-axle garbage trucks, which were also used as a base for 2-axle garbage trucks (satellite), to be used in combination with 3-axle trucks. In 1987 already, garbage semi-trailers were introduced, as they were more suitable to be used as base vehicles for operations to be performed in vast areas, so as to separate the phases of collection and distance transport. That was the first application of the “3E” concept, but also a major safety feature: vehicles to be employed in waste collection were always available, irrespectively of developments related to waste transport to destination plants.

 

Besides the abovementioned vehicles, waste container washing vehicles were introduced for waste container cleaning and disinfection. These vehicles initially had a capacity of 1,100÷1,700 l.

 

Successively, the introduction of larger waste containers (2,400÷3,200 l) led to the purchase of 3-axle vehicles with lateral robotic gripper and waste container washing vehicles equally equipped with robotic lateral gripper. To maintain the logistic competitive value of combinable vehicles, waste trucks equipped with lateral gripper had a removable container (called “body”): when the body reached full capacity, it was removed from the truck and a second body was loaded onto the vehicle so as to continue waste collection, whereas full bodies were loaded in pairs onto semitrailers to be transported to disposal sites. These containers and vehicles were of the utmost importance to increase the share of separate waste collection before door-to-door services were introduced.

 

As far as private clients in particular and large public waste producers are concerned, larger containers – having a capacity range of 4÷6 m³ – equipped with a roofing system were introduced. Special front-loading waste trucks equipped with removable bodies were introduced to empty these new types of containers. SAGER engineering service worked on the creation of the removable containers, which have also been used for private clients and in the separate collection of plastics and garden waste.

 

With the shift to a more ambitious waste sorting based on “proximity collection”, “collection centres” and “door-to-door”, SAGER has commissioned to its engineering service the creation of new solutions to be applied to waste collection and vehicles. As a result, specifically conceived waste trucks were introduced to perform the collection of sorted waste, although the main idea of base and satellite vehicles was maintained.

Waste trucks and second-generation semitrailers have been specifically conceived to separate wet waste leachate, in order to avoid leaks and street pollution during collection. To load other types of waste, these vehicles are equipped with an onboard PLC regulating waste compaction according to the characteristics of waste to be treated. Some vehicles are also equipped with a container washing system, which is activated during container emptying operations, so as to avoid the use of a dedicated container washing vehicle combined with the waste truck. This solution has major positive impacts, as it helps reducing the overall environmental footprint of the operations performed.

 

This is why SAGER has purchased suitable satellite vehicles equipped with a double container (double-tanks) enabling the collection of two different types of waste at a time.

 

The current fleet is the living result of past choices and allows the Company to provide services to any Client, meeting its specific needs in terms of the specific waste collection to be performed. SAGER is well-placed to put forward and advice the best possible solution, judging from its own experience and thinking without boundaries, thanks to all its available vehicles. And in doing so, the Company always takes into account all available resources (in full respect of the “3E” principle of economic viability).

 

Vehicles designed to raise and handle large containers (10÷32 m³ volume) represent the second pillar of the Company’s waste collection fleet. These vehicles, just as body-equipped garbage trucks, are equipped with a removing device, but in this case this system is used to handle containers, which are delivered to both public and private Clients once emptied and recollected when full capacity has been reached. This service is available on-call and/or on demand.

 

Removable cargo bed vehicles, originally equipped with a multi-lift rope system, are now based on hydrodynamic bed-removing systems. Vehicles include both lifting and transport trucks, as well as crane-equipped trucks for loading. The Company owns both double-hook cranes for bell-shaped containers emptying operations, and polyp-equipped for bulk waste handling.

 

According to the type of service, for security reasons, workers may use either removable cargo bed vehicles equipped with stabilizing hydraulic footholds or, in case of heavy loads, with pantograph-equipped mechanical footholds, to be operated hydraulically, which are integral part of the Company-owned vehicles. Moreover, crane-equipped vehicles are operated via a PTT radio control enabling workers to control onboard cranes from the ground.

 

Removable cargo bed vehicles are equipped with a trailer specifically designed to load removable containers, but also to transport equipment – such as grinding mills – when operations require volume reduction at the Client’s venues. 

 

A part of the Company’s removable cargo vehicles are operated by specifically trained and ADR certified staff, under the European ADR (Accord Dangereuses Route) for safe transporting of hazardous waste.

 

SAGER-owned vehicles include semitrailers equipped with large self-compacting systems to perform vehicle-to-vehicle waste transfer from 2-axle collection trucks, but also movable cargo bed semitrailers to perform transfer and long-distance transport of both urban and special waste (for example waste produced in treatment plants, be they packed or in bulk).

 

The Company also owns soft-top large-load capacity semitrailers (structure in aluminium) to perform long-distance transport of heavy waste, such as inert waste, glass, organic waste from separate waste collection, etc. 

Volumes range from 45 m³ for self-compacting soft-top semitrailers to 90 m³ for movable cargo bed semitrailers, the latter being equipped with a fixed top, i.e. a canvas cover enabling top-loading.

 

The Company also owns closed vans, including vans complying with ADR, to transport small amounts of hazardous and non hazardous waste, for example hazardous urban waste, as well as health-care waste.

 

SAGER also owns vehicles to perform road and public areas cleaning. 

 

The Company owns small, medium and large-sized brushing vehicles. Small-sized suction vehicles (from 2 m³) are equipped with a third front brush to easy pavement and kerb cleaning operations. Medium-sized vehicles also (4÷5 m³ container volume) are equipped with a third front brush and are based on either suction or mechanical suction systems. Large-sized vehicles (6 m³ container volume) are not mounted on a specific chassis, as it is the case for small- and medium-sized vehicles, but on a truck cargo bed with hydrostatic traction to enable an on-going speed regulation depending on the specific characteristics of the area to be cleaned. All vehicles are equipped with a flexible tube – operated via an arm to be operated manually for large-sized tubes – to suck leafage or waste clusters.

 

Owning many different vehicles, SAGER can always choose the best option for any specific cleaning operation (clean maintenance, waste clusters removal in market places, construction sites or factories). During operations, areas to be cleaned are previously sprayed with water from the onboard tank. Reserve water is always guaranteed during operations, as vehicles are equipped with special moveable devices with counter to collect water from any public water pipe inside the assigned area.

 

 As to road cleaning, SAGER owns a specific road cleaning vehicle equipped with dedicated nozzles to properly clean areas under parked cars, and also a special manually operable arm to clean areas “beyond” parked vehicles using a lance.

 

To perform snow removal, SAGER relies on a special multipurpose vehicle, UNIMOG, for preventive road salting and snow removal operations.

 

As far as road brushing is concerned, Company-owned vehicles include a number of movable cargo trailers with road signs for the setting up of temporary road work in progress sites, so as to assure maximum safety for brushing staff (be they inside or outside their vehicles). 

 

As far as ground assistance is concerned, the Company’s technical service chooses the less noisy blowers available.

 

SAGER has been the first in Italy to resort to a range of solutions to weigh waste directly during collection. In 1998 the Company was the first to use transponders (1,800 units) on large scale to identify those containers to be emptied, and to resort to onboard weighing using load cells equipped with transducers mounted on the lifting arms of self-compacting containers. In 1999 the same system was applied to onboard weighing of cargo bed removable vehicles, together with dynamometric weighing of loads lifted using the onboard crane, both connected to the onboard PLC. 

 

Today many Company-owned vehicles are equipped with a load weighing system, which also identifies the emptied container and stores the related data on the onboard computer, besides data related to the GIS positioning of the place where waste has been taken on charge, as well as weighing data of each container. The GIS is used also to track vehicles routes and to transmit their position and visualize it on the in-house computer system.

Besides equipment used to perform core operations, SAGER also owns additional equipment.

 

As far as waste treatment (in terms of preliminary operations) is concerned, Company-owned vehicles include a 2-axle slow-motion transportable mill to perform volume reduction of bulky waste, wood pallets, trunks, etc. and a fast-motion mill mounted on a semi-trailer to treat garden waste. Both mills are independent in terms of feeding, being equipped with onboard endothermic engines. 

 

The Company also owns mechanical blades with grabs, or “backhoe loader type” to perform each stage of any operation on the Client’s premises, for example in case of illegal dumping material collection or remediation in general. To this aim, the Company also own a semi-trailer complying with ADR equipped with a tank to collect and/or transport liquid waste.

 

As far as containers are concerned, SAGER owns a wide quantitative and qualitative variety of containers, ranging from 70÷240 l on-trailer containers to 1,100÷1,700 l and 2,400÷3,200 l waste containers, as well as 3÷7 m³ grab-type containers equipped with fixed footholds or wheels, uncovered or covered with a sliding roof to protect waste from bad weather conditions. 

 

When small volumes are entailed, lowered containers are used (for examples for inert waste and other heavy waste), or standard containers for all other types of waste, besides press-containers for recoverable waste, which are equipped with a compacting cochlea or slide-valve device to improve compacting and reduce the environmental impact of operations.