This is a blog about all things garbage trucks. Here you will find: exclusive sneak-peak photos and video clips of upcoming YouTube and Flickr uploads; recollections of some of the crazier things that have happened to me on my garbage truck adventures; tidbits of waste industry news, history, and trivia; pictures of and information about some of my custom model garbage trucks; and of course, links to my latest YouTube and Flickr uploads!
Can you believe it? Another week has already come and gone, and it's time once again for the video of the week!
This week's video highlights a Wittke Starlight front end loader on a Freightliner Condor cab and chassis, powering through a very wet and windy garbage day in Bremerton, WA. As you can see, this particular truck has been outfitted with a "carry can" and cart tipper, allowing this front load truck to collect smaller residential containers, as is seen in the video.
A "Carry Can" Sits on the Forks of a Front Load Refuse Truck to Allow for Residential Collection
A "carry can" is small dumpster-like container that can be mounted to the forks of a front load garbage truck to allow for the manual loading of residential waste. These "carry cans" can also be outfitted with a cart tipper, which allows 64- and 96-gallon trash carts to be mechanically emptied into the "carry can". "Carry cans" have been around since at least the 1980's and were very popular in southern California up until the advent of fully automated waste collection. The "carry can" system continues to be the method of choice for waste collection in many communities here in the Pacific Northwest where tight roads and alleys, inclement weather, and abundant trees and other obstacles make fully automated collection impractical.
With this little bit of back history in mind, check out this weeks video below, featuring the aforementioned "carry can" system:
Freightliner Condor with a Wittke Starlight body, equipped with a "Carry Can"
I hope you all have enjoyed this weeks video! Thanks for stopping by!
It has come to my attention that it has been well over a year since I did anything with this blog, and I've decided to remedy that! To get thins rolling again, I've decided to start off with a new Video of the Week!
Residential Garbage is Manually Loaded into a McNeilus Standard Rear Loader
This week's video features a McNeilus Standard rear-loader on an International 4900 cab and chassis, collecting a mix of residential and commercial garbage in a beautiful waterfront neighborhood on Bainbridge Island, WA. With its small 20-yard body on a single-axle chassis, this little truck is able to easily navigate the narrow streets and tight driveways of this quiet, wooded neighborhood. The low hopper sill helps keep the manual loading of residential garbage easy on the operator, while the 3-cubic-yard hopper capacity and equipped kick bar make this truck ideally suited for small commercial dumpsters as well!
Check out the video below!
McNeilus Standard Rear Loader on an International 4900 Chassis
It's time again for this weeks garbage truck video!
McNeilus AutoReach body on an Autocar ACX chassis
Today's video features the newest addition to the local Waste Management yard's fleet! It is an Autocar ACX with a McNeilus AutoReach automated side load body. This truck was originally purchased for the Portland, OR yard, however, this truck saw very little action down there. Soon after its purchase, the Portland yard converted it's fleet to trucks running on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). As a result, my local yard was able to pick up this truck nearly brand new. The McNeilus AutoReach is really a fun truck to watch, and I hope you guys enjoy the video! Also, I apologize for the audio. Pretty much all you can hear is wind. Right as I began filming, a strong summer thunderstorm rolled in, and kicked up quite the dirt storm! Made for quite the backdrop for the video, but unfortunately, the audio suffered as a result! But don't worry, there will be plenty more video of this truck to come! Enjoy!
A couple weeks ago, my area got hit with a late winter storm that left us with several inches of snow, and later, sleet, ice, and slush as well. I got the opportunity, just before it all melted away, to go out and document how waste collectors adapt to these conditions!
Freightliner Condor with a Wittke Starlight Front-Load body out working in the snow and ice.
Also, I decided to experiment and use my new camera to shoot video with, and if I do say so myself, the results were stunning! So here it is, enjoy this video showing how garbage trucks handle adverse winter conditions!
Friday is upon us once again, and that means it's time to share my new YouTube video for this week! This week's upload features a truck from my local Waste Management yard, a Wittke Starlight front-load body mounted on a 2003 Freightliner Condor chassis, outfitted with The Curotto-Can II for residential waste collection! This video is a bit on the long side, but I promise, it's worth watching until the end, as I tried out a whole bunch of exciting new experimental camera angles throughout the video! So be sure and let me know what you think of the new camera angles, and what you'd like to see more of! Also, I would like to throw a huge thank you out to the driver of this truck, I've known him for a very long time, and he's always gone above and beyond to be friendly and make these little garbage truck filming adventures fun! Anyways, without further ado, here is this week's Thrash 'N' Trash Productions YouTube upload! Enjoy!
Freightliner Condor chassis with a Wittke Starlight Front-Load Body.
Outfitted with The Curotto-Can II for residential waste collection.
As a final note for today, I'd like to apologize for my lack of activity on this blog over the past week, as I've been very busy with work. But, be sure and stay tuned, as I have a lot planned for this blog in the coming days, so be sure and follow!
It's Friday, and that means my latest YouTube video is up and public! This week's video features a Wittke Express Manual Side Loader body on a Volvo WXLL chassis. I found this truck collecting residential recycling in a quiet area of Portland, Oregon back in April of 2013. This truck has a little bit of personal history for me, as it originally came from my local yard, before being sent away to Portland back around 2006. Though this particular truck as never my neighborhood's regular route truck, it did occasionally swing by my house a few times as a help truck. So it was pretty neat for me to see a truck once again that I chased around a few times when I was a kid. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this week's video! Next week's video features some exciting new experimental camera angles, so be sure and tune in for that!
-Bryn
Wittke Express Manual Side Loader body on a Volvo WXLL chassis
Here's a photo I snapped yesterday afternoon. This old beast is a 2003 Freightliner Condor with a Wittke Starlight front load body. This unit has been outfitted with The Curotto-Can II for automated residential waste collection. Though she may be starting to show her age, she still slams back cans and gets the route done like she did on day one!
2003 Freightliner Condor Chassis with a Wittke Starlight Front-Load Refuse Body. Outfitted with The Curotto-Can II.
Hello, and welcome to a blog dedicated to all things waste related!
Where did it all begin?
First off, I'd like to share a little history. For just about as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by garbage trucks. Odd? Perhaps. Believe it or not, it all stemmed from an irrational childhood fear. I was about 3-years-old at the time, and every Tuesday morning, as I'd hear the garbage truck drawing closer and closer to my house, I would scream and cry, and insisted that I must hide in the bathroom and that my mother had to hide with me to keep me safe from the clutches of the ever-terrifying garbage truck. Finally the day came that my mother had had enough of the weekly tantrums, and I was forced, despite my best efforts, to sit and watch the garbage truck from the safety of the living room window, in order to prove that there was nothing to fear. This was supposed to be one-time occurrence, just to prove a point, and nothing more. But, the following Tuesday, I excitedly insisted upon watching the garbage truck again. And again the next week. You get the picture. Everyone figured it was just another one of those childhood phases, that it would soon pass, and my youthful mind would become fascinated with something else. And then years passed by, and this "phase" continued. By the time I was about 6- or 7-years-old, I had befriended my neighborhood garbage man and would follow the garbage truck down my part of the street. Some of the other kids in the neighborhood and at school would pick on me as a result of this strange hobby of mine, but I never let it stop me. Though the vast majority of the people in my life have been extremely supportive of my interest in the waste business, there have of course been a fair share of naysayers as well. I have had teachers, school counselors, and the like tell me that if I continued with this obsession with garbage trucks, I would not lead a successful life. People would think I was weird, I wouldn't have friends, I wouldn't get a job, certainly no one would want to marry me, or raise a family with me, and so on, unless I "learned to grow up". Did I take their advice? Of course not. And yet here I am, 20-years-old, still as fascinated with garbage trucks as ever, in fact, I only become more and more interested in the solid waste industry as time goes on, and on top of that, I am gainfully employed, engaged to be married, and have many close friends. On top of that, I have created a very successful online brand, Thrash 'N' Trash Productions, in which I share videos and photos of garbage trucks with others who share this unique interest. Which brings us to more current times...
Classic Refuse Trucks
The one rather negative thing that this hobby brought me through most of my childhood was a feeling of emptiness; I always felt alone. I of course had plenty of friends, but I never met anyone else who found there to be anything even remotely interesting about garbage trucks. I just came to feel that I must be the only person on Earth who had such a deep fascination with these machines. But that all changed in 2007. While browsing the web after school one day, I stumble across a website called Classic Refuse Trucks, which is essentially an online museum and library dedicated to the history of waste collection. At last I knew that I was not alone in this interest! There was at least someone else like me out there. After spending many, many afternoons enthusiastically absorbing all the information the site had to offer, I noticed that there was also as online forum attached to the site. Of course, I joined immediately and discovered to my great joy, hundreds of members of all ages from all around the world, and all just as obsessed with garbage trucks as myself! It really brought on a great sense of relief to know that I was not anywhere close to being alone in this unique hobby. In addition to the forum, many of the members also posted videos of their local garbage trucks on YouTube, so in the summer of 2008, I purchased a cheap camcorder, opened up a YouTube account, and joined in!
Thrash 'N' Trash Productions
Since first creating my YouTube account nearly six years ago, I have created a unified online brand called Thrash 'N' Trash Productions which I have dedicated to documenting a vast variety of garbage trucks and other waste-related equipment through a series of professional grade, high-definition videos on YouTube, professional-grade photographs on Flickr, and more recently, a Facebook page in which other garbage truck enthusiasts of all ages can talk to me about the waste industry, ask me questions, and get an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at what I do. Over the past two years, since graduating from high school, I have had the opportunity to meet several other waste industry enthusiasts, as well as getting to film and photograph garbage trucks in three different states, including Oregon and California, as well as my home state of Washington.
Watch the video above to see exactly what I do at Thrash 'N' Trash Productions!
Wasted In Washington
As I begin to grow this blog, what you can expect to see here is: exclusive sneak-peak photos and video clips of upcoming YouTube and Flickr uploads; recollections of some of the crazier things that have happened to me on my garbage truck adventures; tidbits of waste industry news, history, and trivia; pictures of and information about some of my custom model garbage trucks; and of course, links to my latest YouTube and Flickr uploads!
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog, and welcome aboard!
