Riding the Garbage Truck

It's 2:30 and I've been in the chair for an hour. I don't see how they do it.

The route we ran today has 640 homes on it and we ran 2 trucks, the one I rode on, and one other. At the end of the day, we followed the other truck to the dumping station, where each truck was weighed on the way in, and again on the way out, empty. Each truck picked up about 6 tons of garbage today. Typically, each truck is driven and operated by ONE man.

Today, I was a helper. I rode the back of the truck, hopped down and emptied garbage cans, and hopped back up. The driver usually does all this in addition to driving. To empty a can, you roll it to the back of the truck (sounds easy, but when they are heavy, is sometimes difficult.) Then you hook the bar at the front of the can over the lip of the lifter, and press down on the lever. The lifter lifts the can up in the air over the bay of the truck, and the garbage falls into it. You press the lever down and the can returns to the ground. When the bay is full, there is another lever to make the jaws come out and compact the garbage up into the front of the truck. The bay fills up about every 4 or 5 stops.

The platform I stood on, on the back of the truck, is about 32" off the ground. At one point, I was sweating and my jeans were soaked in sweat. Being wet, they had stretched a little and were falling down on my hips. With the crotch halfway to my knees, it was much harder to leap gracefully to the little platform.

There are eight garbage men and they make 10,558 stops a week. The drivers are an awesome bunch of guys: a deacon, a co-pastor, a former football running back (still holds the county record!!) 2 guys who love rebuilding old cars, a fisherman and a fellow who loves to barbecue.

After we all finished, we sat in the office and I interviewed them. They had some stories to tell!! One of the guys had a naked lady chasing him down the street. She had forgotten to take out her garbage before he came. One of the guys chats with the older people on his route. What season do they dread the most? Hunting season. Too much blood and guts in the garbage. What weather do they dread the most? Icy rain.

I learned many things today: for one thing, not all garbage stinks the same. In fact, it's not too awful in general, except when there is vomit in it. (Why do ppl put vomit in the garbage??) We encountered about 6 to 8 vomit-y stops. Another thing I learned was, I never want to get my hand caught in the compacting jaws on the truck. That thing smashed a sofa like it was a matchstick. Bicycles didn't even slow it down. Neither did patio umbrellas. I asked and was told it compacts at a 6:1 ratio. 300 cubic yards is smashed down to 50.

Each of the men was a total gentleman around me. They kidded, they laughed, and they never said an off-color word or made any innuendo. They even hesitated before telling me about the naked lady. The driver who took me along drove that truck like a baby. He went slowly over bumps so I wouldn't fall off the back. He watched for low hanging limbs so I wouldn't get slapped. He cautioned me to let him know when things were too heavy for me to lift. I couldn't have asked for a more thoughtful and kind driver.

DH found us three or four times through the morning and freely used one of the three cameras he had hanging around his neck: the videocam, the digital camera, and the SLR. We've got scads of pics of me hanging on the back of the truck, getting off the truck, getting on the truck, moving cans, raising cans, lowering cans. Pics of my driver, pics of the other driver on today's route. The other driver was a guy named James. Tall, black, attractive, and always smiling, James has been doing this for 32 years. He gets the Everlasting Award. DH told James, "Work her hard!" and James enjoyed repeating this several times.

Being a garbage man is a hazardous job -- not necessarily because of the garbage, the glass or the needles, the fumes or the dust or the puke, but because of the idiot drivers. People pass on the left. They pass on the right. When there are 6 or 8 cars backed up in a line behind the garbage truck, some nut will pass 'em all.

A garbage man was killed last year by a lady who was driving and putting on her makeup at the same time. (Please do not do this.) She did not see the 10-ton truck, the flashing lights, or the dayglo orange shirt. She plowed straight into the back of the truck -- through the man who was standing behind the truck at the time. His torso went into the bay of the truck. His legs lay on the street. These men are brave and tough and funny and very bright -- the one thing that makes them all go serious very fast is the issue of traffic.

Today was a day I'll never forget.