Supplier News

New Way enters hydrogen fuel cell alliance

New Way Trucks, Scranton, Iowa, has entered into a joint development agreement (JDA) with Hyzon Motors Inc. to develop a hydrogen fuel cell-powered refuse collection vehicle for the North American market.

Hyzon, a Rochester, New York-based hydrogen fuel cell technology developer and global supplier of zero-emission, heavy-duty fuel cell-electric vehicles (FCEVs), says trials of hydrogen fuel cell waste and recycling collection trucks could begin in the first half of this year.

“Zero emission hydrogen fuel cell technology is the key to reducing emissions from many hard-to-abate industries, including refuse collection,” Hyzon CEO Parker Meeks says. “The operational capabilities of our Australian fuel cell refuse collection truck trial helped demonstrate that hydrogen fuel cell technology is a viable replacement for traditional diesel engines when it comes to heavy industry.”

Through the JDA, Hyzon will supply and integrate its fuel cell technology and integrated powertrain, while New Way will supply and integrate the prototype Sidewinder XTR automated side-load refuse body, “thereby combining both companies’ expertise to develop a sustainable refuse collection solution.”

According to Hyzon, it developed and assembled a FCEV refuse truck that Remondis Australia, the Australian business unit of a Germany-based environmental services company, began operating in October of last year.

In North America, Hyzon estimates about 120,000 refuse trucks are operating, consuming about 950 million gallons of diesel fuel annually.

“The integration of FCEVs into refuse collection fleets in North America provides an opportunity to help decarbonize the industry and reduce noise pollution from diesel trucks,” the company says.

The companies say initial customer trials for their JDA’s first North American prototype truck are planned for the first half of 2024 using a mix of public and private refuse fleets.

Clarience acquires Safe Fleet

Transportation visibility and safety technology developer Clarience Technologies, Southfield, Michigan, has acquired Safe Fleet, a Belton, Missouri-based safety solutions provider for fleet vehicles.

Clarience says the purchase reinforces its mission to bring total visibility to transportation and enhance safety, security and productivity for customers across the industry.

“Clarience Technologies and Safe Fleet share a common mission of making transportation safer and smarter through technology,” CEO Brian Kupchella says. “The acquisition of Safe Fleet provides our company with critical technologies, deep vocational segment expertise and a portfolio of powerful and complementary safety products that support our vision to provide comprehensive solutions to a broader set of transportation customers around the world.”

Clarience says Safe Fleet delivers smart safety solutions that help save lives, prevent injuries and make fleet operators more productive. The Safe Fleet product portfolio includes technology-enabled solutions for fleet video and evidence management, collision prevention, violation detection and trailer temperature control in addition to advanced cargo storage systems and safety technologies. Safe Fleet currently has more than 1.5 million video systems deployed in North America.

Safe Fleet customers are supported by its network of service centers and affiliates across North America.

The acquisition will increase Clarience’s total workforce to more than 4,000 employees across nearly 50 locations worldwide. Safe Fleet joins the Clarience team of companies, including Truck-Lite, Ecco, Code 3, Pressure Systems International, Davco, Road Ready, Fleetilla, LED Autolamps, Rigid Industries and Lumitec. Clarience adds that its acquisition will allow it to provide customers with an extensive range of visibility and safety solutions, from lighting and telematics to video and evidence management systems, all interconnected through a comprehensive digital backbone for improved performance.

Ingram Equipment announces expansion

Birmingham, Alabama-based Ingram Equipment Co. has opened a new location in Dothan, Alabama. The expansion marks the environmental, waste management and commercial equipment company’s sixth location and will serve growing demand in the Southeast.

Situated on a 5-acre site in Alabama, the 10,000-square-foot service center houses a team focused on delivering maintenance, service and support to clients in the Wiregrass region and beyond.

“Building strong relationships with our customers and partners remains a priority,” says Keith Johnson, general manager and vice president of Ingram Equipment. “Expanding into Dothan allows us to strengthen these relationships and better serve our clients in the region with our expanding network of locations and team members.”

Family-owned and operated since 1979, Ingram Equipment represents 17 manufacturing partners across Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida panhandle. The company says its new location aligns with its strategic growth initiatives.

“Our decision to open a new location in Dothan reflects our ongoing commitment to meeting the needs of our customers,” Ingram Equipment CEO Jeff Martin says. “We are excited about the opportunity to grow our presence in the Wiregrass region and look forward to building lasting relationships with our clients and the community.”

Amp Robotics rebrands

Amp Robotics has rebranded as Amp and launched a new website to better reflect the evolution of the business from a provider of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to fully automated, facility-scale sorting solutions that integrate its AI-powered sorting technology.

Amp CEO Matanya Horowitz tells Recycling Today Media Group the company has been working on applying AI in the recycling industry for some time and that robots were one main way to take advantage of that technology.

Since its founding, Amp has introduced a variety of AI-enabled technologies, from the Cortex-C, a compact version of its robotics system, to Vortex, which targets and recovers film and flexible packaging. These solutions often were designed to be retrofitted into facilities. However, the company’s new Amp One consists of a set of different tools it can apply to greenfield projects rather than retrofits, providing “a high certainty that recovery rates are optimized,” Horowitz says.

He adds that Amp realized it could have a greater impact building greenfield facilities as opposed to retrofitting AI-enabled robots into preexisting facilities.

“We started changing how we talked about our solutions and the future of the company,” Horowitz says. “We were talking and thinking about things differently; branding is a way to communicate those things.”

He says the company has been broadening its language and the people it’s talking with to include stakeholders not just at the material recovery facility (MRF) level but also landfill operators, consumer packaged goods companies, petrochemical companies and municipalities to address waste flows in an entire region. These stakeholders often were “talking past one another and not understanding what the other counterparty needs,” Horowitz says, though it was clear to Amp that sorting is the core issue all these stakeholders share.

In a Feb. 1 blog post announcing the change, Horowitz writes, “We’re selling more than robots—we’re providing solutions that address the waste industry’s biggest challenges, and we’re ready to introduce a new brand identity that reflects our delivery of AI-powered sortation at scale.”