Garbage trucks

laurenclaire1386

Do you know if your city still has real live human beings dumping your bins into the garbage truck? My city has trucks with a giant motorized arm that picks up the cans, dumps 3/4 of what's in the can into the truck, the rest goes on the street, and they destroy tree branches on the way down and up. I got behind one on my way to work this morning and it pissed me off. There was garbage strewn all over the street and somebody's crepe myrtle looked like it had been raped. And it didn't set the can back upright. I'm assuming that most cities use these types of garbage trucks, but was just wondering if that's the case where you live? And if it is, do they suck as bad as my city's? I have to think that if it were real people dumping the cans, like it used to be, the job would be done properly. And maybe some people looking for work could find work. ::steps off soapbox::

danieliza1127

Our garbage truck still has live guys but our recycling truck is automated I think. 

cengle

Our city (at least in some neighborhoods) has the truck with the big lever thing.  I've never noticed it throwing trash everywhere though. 
It was just extremely loud and obnoxious.

Trifury2007

Both recycling and garbage trucks for me use live guys thank goodness. Even then there is often stuff that gets left on the street.

laurenclaire1386

Cengle, ours is ridiculously loud too. Every Tuesday and Friday, I'm up at 5 AM. I don't mind the noise, really, it's just that they're doing more harm than good, that I can tell.

noodle_oo

Our trash is the automated type and it works great.  No trash in the street, the can is always upright afterwards.  I think it is great.  Although it is a new system, so maybe as the trucks get older it will go downhill... we'll see!

Recycling is still guys tossing the bins into a truck.

wadingmoose

Real live people which is good because I don't have garbage bins.  I just leave the bags on the curb.  Mainly because of wind.  I've actually lost garbage cans before because the wind can get so strong.

MissLeahM

We still have the human beings.

You could call the city and let them know that they are making a mess.

laurenclaire1386

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_garbage-trucks?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:27f150fc-35a6-446f-ba5c-c43cd09f18eaPost:f07b0b62-4fb0-4706-b88f-ac24e889a7bd">Re: Garbage trucks</a>:
[QUOTE]Real live people which is good because I don't have garbage bins.  I just leave the bags on the curb.  Mainly because of wind.  I've actually lost garbage cans before because the wind can get so strong.
Posted by wadingmoose[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that's another problem with the automated system. FI and I raked up a bunch of leaves, dead limbs, etc., out of the yard, and they wouldn't fit into the can, so we set them next to the can. Where they did not get picked up.

wadingmoose

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_garbage-trucks?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:27f150fc-35a6-446f-ba5c-c43cd09f18eaPost:80f3708b-8fd1-42d6-b210-8eecd4a2fa06">Re: Garbage trucks</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Garbage trucks : Yeah, that's another problem with the automated system. FI and I raked up a bunch of leaves, dead limbs, etc., out of the yard, and they wouldn't fit into the can, so we set them next to the can. Where they did not get picked up.
Posted by laurenclaire1386[/QUOTE]


Ok, that's just bad.

Stackeye210

Columbus is automated but the township I live in is real life guys - that I have to pay a crap ton of money to each month just to pick it up.  My trash cans are always on their side and in the street (so there goes your theory that it'd be done right) 

laurenclaire1386

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_garbage-trucks?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:27f150fc-35a6-446f-ba5c-c43cd09f18eaPost:5b5423e3-b8bb-472d-ad38-f489f8771dfe">Re: Garbage trucks</a>:
[QUOTE]Columbus is automated but the township I live in is real life guys - that I have to pay a crap ton of money to each month just to pick it up.  My trash cans are always on their side and in the street (so there goes your theory that it'd be done right) 
Posted by Stackeye210[/QUOTE]
Well shucks :( BTW, Mr. Stack and lil Stack are the height of adorable.

waltzingmatilda13

I live in a townhouse community so we use a private garbage collection service. Real guys actually come up onto our porch to take the trash bins to the truck, empty them and return them to the porch. They are really nice guys, too. I see them sometimes on my way out to work and they always say hi.

Stackeye210

Why thanks very much! 

shaydenise

Ours has the mechanical arms.  And the garbage truck driver seems to think driving down our street is similar to NASCAR and has now made the sides of the road crumble (we live on a cul-de-sac).  So because it's a private road our subdivision has to pay for it.  i.e. higher HOA dues.  Fun.

Amivy06

Ours are still people tossing it into the truck. For heavier dumpsters they use some kind of mechanical thing to lift the dumpster, but I've never heard of trucks with mechanical arms. I'd be pissed if I saw garbage all over my street.

mocha beans

Our garbage and recycling just went by and they use the mechanical grabber arms.  We've never had a problem though, the bins are always right where we left them and there's no trash on the streets.  Maybe we just have awesome trucks.

laurenclaire1386

Baton Rouge, and Louisiana in general, is famous for mismanaging funds, so maybe they just got the crappiest freakin trucks available. I don't know. Although I know it won't do much good, I'm gonna call the city on my lunch break. The city has a facebook page, and I wrote on their wall.

vegasgroom

I think it depends on the combination of truck robot arm and the can.  I've seen communities where the city mandates you take their garbage can which fits the arm perfectly and doesn't make a mess, or others where the truck has a generic arm and just tries to squeeze the hell out of whatever it picks up so it won't fall out, and that's often when the trash goes everywhere.

In my nightborhood it's still real people but they have a lifter on the back of the truck so they don't have to pull all the bags out of the can themselves.

polichik

I've never even heard of those! Ours have live people, although I don't live in Chicago city proper, so they might have motorized ones down there. I'm curious now.

mandysmear

Our david suzuki boxes were given to us from the city and they have a metal bar on the front and a machine picks them up.

Garbage bags go onto the street as is, no can, just the bag, so I imagine a real live person picks it up.

thesuninherhead

The garbage trucks here have real guys driving them (lol, obviously) but they haven't had men hanging off the ends of them for... well, as long as I can remember. They've been the mobilised type for at least the last 15 years, and probably longer. I can't actually recall ever seeing anything different. Like Mocha, we have only the very rarest of issue with trash ending up on the road (like, perhaps you'll have a bit of paper or something that lands there, but nothing major).

That said, we don't have 'cans' either, we have big plastic rubbish bins which are council supplied. The one with the yellow lid is recycling and the green is regular. We call them 'wheelie bins' (probably because they have wheels! haha). 

 

diva1397

I live in the same city LC lives in, and fortunately, the trucks seem to do ok in our neighborhood.  (Well, the bins are often on their sides, but at least I haven't noticed any trash in the street). My gripe is that the bins the city provides (similar to what thesun posted) are HUGE and unwieldy.  I also hate that the recycling bins are way smaller than the garbage bins. We always run out of room in the recycling bin, but could go a month without filling the garbage bin.