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Browns recycle through recession with new DAFs

21st April 2010 Print
DAF LF

Continued expansion despite the recession has led to four new DAFs joining the waste collection fleet of Staffordshire company H Brown & Son (Recycling) Limited.

The arrival of the new trucks brings Browns’ fleet to 25, making it one of the leading independent waste and recycling operators in Staffordshire. The three different types of truck also reflect the increasing diversity of its operations, which serve mainly industrial and commercial customers in a 30 mile radius around its Stoke-on-Trent base.

Particularly interesting is a DAF CF75 six-wheeler running at 26 tonnes. This is an unusual sleeper-cab 6x2 tag-axle model with a 7.315 metre (24 foot) flatbed body and a large Atlas 190.A2 crane behind the cab. It also has a 430 litre aluminium fuel tank for longer runs and the high spec includes a full-width sun visor, tinted glass, electric windows and heated mirrors.

Managing Director Rod Brown says that this truck is a new type in the fleet and is proving a very adaptable vehicle. “We bought it primarily to collect scrap machinery as part of the metals recycling side of our business. However, we’ve found several other uses for it including a job that involves picking up baled cardboard.  The crane adds a useful self-loading capability and the sleeper cab allows us to use it on jobs that are further afield and that might require an overnight stay.”

Alongside the six-wheeler is a 5.7 metre wheelbase DAF four-axle CF85 with Reynolds Boughton hooklift gear and its Kwikcova sheeting system. This has the 12.9 litre MX engine rated at 410 bhp (300 kW) and an ample 2000 Nm of torque. An AS-tronic automated gearbox has been specified to make the driver’s job easier on work that involves numerous short journeys with constant stopping and starting.

The other two DAFs are 18 tonne skiploaders based on the 3.75 metre wheelbase LF55 chassis. These have Telehoist CH18 equipment featuring a short back end that enables the truck to get much closer to the drop or collection point and telescopic arms that allow skips to be lifted over obstacles and which assist in ‘nesting’ empty skips to improve productivity. With this new pair Browns now operate 11 skiploaders.

The trucks are working out of the company’s modern materials recycling facility at Burslem, in which they have recently invested over £2.5 million. Development is currently taking place to further expand this facility to cover an additional three acres by the end of 2010.

Browns Waste Management has been a family run business for more than 80 years. Today it employs over 50 people to operate its fleet of skip and hooklift vehicles and rear-end loaders, its highly sophisticated waste sorting plant, and its car and scrap metals crushing, shearing and baling equipment.

The trucks were supplied by the local DAF dealer, Imperial Commercials of Stoke.

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DAF LF DAF CF