Imagine not being woken up by loud garbage trucks.

I believe in sustainability, and I expect most people have a broad interest in ensuring we continue to inhabit a liveable world. But more pressingly, I care about my sleep, and I’m sure everyone has been woken in the early hours of the morning by garbage trucks. These diesel hungry goliaths roam our streets and perform one of the most important jobs in our society... So we give them a pass, because it’s a necessary evil.

But is it? Garbage trucks are loud (and bad for the environment) because they leave their diesel engine revving – to power the lifts and compactors. What if this was an electric engine, supplied by batteries? What if this technology already existed and was able to be retrofitted into trucks?

I was made aware over the weekend of Janus Electric, and I felt like I finally heard the first bit of good news I’d been waiting for all year. They have a patented change and charge system for trucks, whereby the batteries are able to be removed and charged anywhere, at any time.

The cost of replacing existing diesel engines is comparable to the cost of rebuilding an existing diesel motor. Current modelling has shown that Janus can do this manual conversion in a matter of a week, with future automation improvements set to reduce this. The first trucks for transport and logistics have already been converted and are operational.