When the economy began heading south last year, Gary Simmons knew his company needed to start investigating cost-savings initiatives — and fast.

For Simmons, vice president of fleet management at Casella Waste Systems, Rutland, Vt., everything was on the table: Casella's truck specifications, routes, even the "green" initiatives pursued by the company. Simmons was interested in anything that would control or reduce costs.

For example, the firm is planning to replace its end-dump transfer trailers with tipper trailers. "The increased load capacity will mean 250,000 fewer over-the-road miles, along with the resulting cost and environmental savings of such a reduction," Simmons says.

Casella also is in the process of re-routing much of its collection fleet, from which Simmons expects to achieve a 5 percent cost savings. Furthermore, the company is focusing on improving fuel economy. Casella operates approximately 1,250 vehicles, including front loaders, rear loaders, side loaders, recycling trucks, support vehicles, tractor-trailers and roll-off trucks. Thus, fuel economy is a significant operating metric, both for financial and environmental reasons, Simmons points out.

"We've instituted a very stringent anti-idle policy and track fuel usage daily, route-by-route, by both miles and hours," he says. "We've focused on making it part of our culture to eliminate excessive idling, which often occurs out of bad habits or due to outdated assumptions that engines must idle longer than three minutes to function properly. This is an important part of our effort to achieve that significant milestone to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but also to save fuel and money."