Ace Recycling Plugs In: Why an Electric Refuse Truck Actually Matters

By Siam Sukkhee Trading Co., Ltd — 2026-09-13 — Waste360 (recycling/scrap)

Ace Recycling & Disposal moved a big electric truck into their fleet this month. Not the kind of thing that usually makes headlines.

But this one does.

The vehicle—a McNeilus Volterra ZSL side loader—is essentially what happens when you stop treating refuse collection like a job from 1987 and start actually engineering it for the people who run the routes. The truck is fully electric. Hits 38 percent more cab space than the standard garbage truck. And the step height is 15 inches, meaning drivers aren't scrambling up the side like they're boarding a cattle car.

Here's what matters: Ace Recycling covers Utah and Wyoming, serving more than a million people weekly. These are real routes, demanding terrain, residential pickups that demand precision and speed. Not a demo. Not a test bed.

The engineering underneath is what got my attention. The vehicle runs on lithium-ion batteries paired with an electric-axle system. Regenerative braking captures energy on descent. The idea is simple—you complete a full day's collections on a single charge with zero emissions. No tailpipe. No diesel smell coating the neighborhood at 6 a.m.

Actually, that's not quite right. I should say: zero tailpipe emissions. The power plant is somewhere else, and that's a different conversation about grid makeup. But locally, for the people on the street where the truck operates? Clean air. That matters.

The safety layer is almost boring in how thorough it is. Blind-spot monitoring. A 360-degree camera system. Forward and rear collision alerts. Lane departure warning. The McNeilus Zero Radius vertical lift arm handles the actual collection without needing to flatten the truck in tight residential streets. The whole rig is certified zero-emission by both the EPA and California Air Resources Board, which means it meets the standards everyone's going to enforce eventually anyway.

Most fleet managers buy things because the spreadsheet says so—depreciation, fuel cost, maintenance. Ace Recycling's move suggests something else is happening. They're buying it because the truck was actually built for the people operating it.

Solid design is invisible until it isn't.

Source: "ACE Recycling & Disposal, a leading refuse and recycling provider serving more than one million people each week across Utah and Wyoming, has added its first McNeilus® Volterra™ ZSL™ electric side loader refuse collection vehicle to its fleet." — Waste360

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