Why Municipalities Need Street Sweepers

Why Municipalities Need Street Sweepers Grand Rapids, MI

No one wants to live in a dirty neighborhood with dead leaves and broken glass lying forgotten in the street. While most people take street sweeping for granted, it’s noticeable to all who live and work in a neighborhood when basic maintenance has been neglected. With fall just around the corner, it’s more important than ever for municipalities to invest in street sweeper trucks.

What Do Street Sweepers Do?

Street sweeping removes:

  • Salt
  • Sand
  • Leaf litter
  • Broken glass
  • Small metal pieces
  • Other types of small debris

Here’s why they matter.

1. First Impressions

Dirty streets leave a bad impression on visitors, especially if they’re seeing your city for the first time. Fortunately, street sweepers are able to remove dirt, broken glass, leaves, and other types of small debris. Street sweeping shows visitors that you care about making your city a nice place to live and work.

Vehicles leave behind a lot of dirt, sand, salt, and other debris from their tire treads. While street cleaning should be part of your city’s routine maintenance, we recommend extra sweeping if you have a special event coming up so you can make a good impression.

If you need another street sweeper truck for your fleet, we recommend giving us a call. We’ll make sure you have the litter and leaf removal equipment you need to keep city streets clean year-round.

2. Water Management

Many municipalities (including Grand Rapids) use salt and sand in the winter to give drivers better traction on roads. However, if you neglect street sweeping, this salt and sand will flow into the sewer system the first time it rains.

Salt and sand can also get swept into rivers and lakes, affecting water quality. Fortunately, street sweeper trucks are designed to pick up small debris so it can be safely disposed of in a way that won’t harm the environment.

Each street sweeper truck is equipped with a spray water system, making debris easier for broom bristles to grab. Once the broom runs over the litter, it’s pulled up by a different broom that acts much like an escalator would to move litter into the hopper. Later, the street sweeper will be able to dump the litter into a waste management truck so it can be disposed of safely.

The ground filters rainfall by trapping impurities before it returns to the water table. However, cities are covered in asphalt, roofs, and other impervious surfaces that prevent water from being soaked into the ground. Since this runoff flows into rivers and lakes, it’s important that you keep streets clean to reduce the risk of water contamination.

3. Efficiency

There are too many miles of road to sweep it by hand. While street sweepers may drive slowly (around 8mph), they efficiently remove dirt, leaves, and other debris in the early morning hours when most people are still in bed. Unless you hire a team of superheroes who can clean with inhuman speed, there’s no way you can beat that kind of efficiency.

Call Today!

Interested in our street sweepers for sale? Fredrickson Supply has different types of municipal equipment in Grand Rapids for sweeping streets, parking lots, and even airport runways. To request a quote, call (888) 949-2385.

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