Garbage truck

A garbage truck known as a dustcart in the United Kingdom, is a truck specially designed to haul waste to landfills and other recycling / disposal facilities. They are a common sight in most urban areas.

There are two basic models of garbage truck:

Front Loaders generally service commercial and industrial sites using dumpsters. They have large prongs on the front which are carefully aligned with arms on the dumpster. The dumpster is then lifted over the truck, until it is upside-down and the trash will then fall out into the receptacle.

Rear Loaders commonly service residential areas. They have an opening at the rear that a trash collector can throw garbage bags, or empty trash cans into. They are usually equipped with some type of compactor that will compress the garbage, and move it towards the front of the vehicle.

There are also side loaders which are versions of either of these systems. Some side loaders lift smaller trash containers. In the manner of front loaders, others have openings on the side for waste to be thrown in.

There are also larger trucks that carry trash over long distances, and usually modified dump trucks.

Garbage trucks empty their trash in landfills. Most rear loaders lift the rear section so that the garbage will spill out. Front loaders more commonly have a wall that pushes the garbage out. Some larger landfills will have large contraptions that tip the entire truck, thus allowing the trucks to not have to carry their own method of emptying the garbage.

History

Wagons and other means had been used for centuries to haul away solid waste. Trucks were first used for this purpose soon after their invention. The 1920s first saw open topped dump trucks used for the purpose, but soon covered vehicles became used more often. The open tops tended to drop waste and had poor odours. These covered trucks were first introduced in more densely populated Europe than in North America, but were soon used everywhere.

The covered vehicles were still modified dump trucks, however. The main difficulty was that the garbage collectors needed to lift the trash to shoulder height. The first technique developed in the late 20s to solve this problem was to build round compartments with massive corkscrews that would lift the load and bring it away from the rear. A more efficient model was the development of the hopper in 1929. It solved this problem by developed a cable system that a could pull garbage into the truck. The 1920s soon specialized vehicles were created

In 1938 the Garwood Load Packer revolutionized the industry when the notion of including a compactor in the truck was implemented. The first primitive compactor could double a truck's capacity. This was made possible by the availability of relatively cheap hydraulic presses.

1955 saw the Dempster Dumpmaster the first front loader introduced. They do not become common until the 1970s, however.

Since that time there has been little dramatic change. Compactor designs however, have been many and varied, one of the most popular being the traditional "sweep and slide" system where hydraulically-powered plates scoop out the garbage from a loading hopper and subsequently compact it against the material already loaded. The Heil Colectomatic used a combination of a lifting loading hopper and a sweeper blade to clear and compact garbage in anticipation of the next load.

So-called "continuous" compactors were popular in the 1960s and 1970s. The British Shark design (later Rotopress) used a huge rotating drum, analogous to a cement mixer, in conjunction with a serrated auger to grind down and compact the garbage. The Shelvoke & Drewry Revopak, used continuously rotating tines to crush large items with ease. High fuel consumption has seen a decline in the popularity of continuously compacting garbage trucks.

There has long been the dream of the fully automated garbage truck that could do away with all but the driver. Some cities do have these systems, but they are generally unable to deal with unexpected situations.

External Link

History of refuse collection - Historical information and many pictures of garbage trucks.