Harrisonburg Public Works was honored at the Smart Cities Connect Conference and Expo last week for a new city program that digitizes sanitation routes, in turn decreasing average route lengths and cutting down on the time and fuel needed to collect waste across the community each week.
The program is a partnership between Public Works and Rubicon Technologies LLC, which provides smart waste and recycling solutions to organizations and municipalities. This reduced mileage created by the Rubicon program accounts for more than $90,000 in annual savings, and approximately 230,000 pounds of CO2 emissions avoided – the equivalent to taking 20 passenger vehicles off the road each year.
“Harrisonburg is excited to be the recipient of a Smart 50 Award for our continued work with Rubicon to protect our community’s environment,” Harrisonburg Public Works Support Services Manager Harsit Patel said. “The annual taxpayer savings generated from utilizing Rubicon’s products allows us to put these dollars to work in other areas of the city and provide more efficient and effective government for all.”
To celebrate the award and show other municipalities how they could benefit from the program, Rubicon created a video highlighting how Harrisonburg’s system works: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jj2a76k50M.
“This win is a credit to both teams, and I congratulate all involved,” Nate Morris, chairman and CEO of Rubicon, said. “Harrisonburg is a prime example of how innovation can be found anywhere and everywhere in the United States, and we look forward to many more years of helping the City deliver operational efficiencies, improved services, and real taxpayer savings to its residents.”
This is the second recent national honor for Public Works, which also received the Gold Medal Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award this year for its Urban Forestry and Urban Wood program.
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