Low gas prices don’t halt waste industry’s CNG vehicle buys

The falling price of gasoline has not deterred the waste management industry from purchasing vehicles powered by compressed natural gas (CNG), and it doesn’t look it is going to, according to an article in the on-line news outlet Waste360.org. “Our objective to convert to CNG has not changed and is a key objective for Waste Pro’s long-term future,” Harland Chadbourne, purchasing director at Waste Pro USA (Longwood, FL), told Waste360.org. “We believe that diesel prices will remain low for a while but will come back to a higher price range in the future.” About 10% of Waste Pro’s fleet of more than 2,000 vehicles is CNG-powered. Meanwhile, Waste Management, Inc. (Houston, TX) is on its current track towards converting more than 4,000 trucks in its fleet of 18,000 vehicles to CNG- and liquefied natural gas-powered vehicles by the end of January. The company “understands the volatility of oil prices, and we remain committed to our strategy of transitioning at least 90% of our fleet to natural gas vehicles,” Marty Tufte, the company’s corporate fleet director, told Waste360.org.