How do they empty a garbage (trash) truck???
lots of people with shovels.
the compacting trucks lift and tip like a dump truck.
Make your own joke:
They stop at _____________'s house.
They go to one of several places - a recycling center, a garbage burning plant or a dump. They can tip their beds or use a mechanical plunger to push out the garbage, depending on the type of truck it is.
If you go to youtube and type in garbage truck, there should be a number of videos of them in action.
This is yet another of the little miracles we mere mortals in the general public would never get to see were it not for YouTube: garbage truck unloading - Google Search
Back when they used to let you drive your pickup into the city dump here, you would pull up right next to the unloading garbage trucks, which was fun. You’d just toss your old couch or whatever onto the heap and then the guy driving the giant bulldozer would crush it then and there. Deeply satisfying! Alas, now they just have you pitch your stuff into dumpsters and we don’t get to see the real magic happen.
Previous posters have already described most of the common methods, that are currently used. I would like to add one, that hasn’t. At some landfills in my part of the world, contractors, homeowners and others that do clean up type work, this method can and is commonly employed.
A standard double axled trailer (most common size = 16’ long x approx. 6’ wide) that commonly has short (12" - 24") sides of steel angle iron or pipe construction, is retrofitted with plywood side boards and front (usually 4’ high, but it can vary). A wooden pallet (this is what I use/have found to work best) is placed at the front of the trailer with a chain securely attached to it. You need to be sure and have enough chain to extend from the back of the trailer at LEAST, ANOTHER 10’ - 15’. TWO 20’ - 25’ chains are what I generally use. One for inside the trailer, and the other to hook onto the trailer chain and extend it out far enough to attach to the bulldozer. (wire the chain’s hook back to itself, to prevent it from accidentally coming undone from the pallet) Let the chain lie along the floor of the trailer, down the center. Proceed to load your trash. (You might want to set the pallet at a slight angle against the front of the trailer, to prevent it from sliding underneath your load. It kind of depends on the type of trash being loaded, as to whether or not this needs to be done.) When you arrive at the landfill, have the dozer operator hook onto the chain, and simply drag the load out. 
A couple of notes on this method. (Learned over many years of experience. 
)
- Call the landfill you intend to use and inquire if they will even do “pulloffs”! SOME landfills will not do this, for varying reasons. :smack:
- Take along rakes, shovels, pitchforks, brooms, etc. for clearing out anything that doesn’t “pull out”. (Also, remember GLOVES! Sometimes the chain or even pallet, will break or come undone. At THAT point, it is ALL done BY HAND! :eek:)
- After hooking the chain to the dozer/compactor and before he starts to pull, it’s a good idea to get into the vehicle hooked to the trailer and hold the brake pedal down, so as not to put a strain on your transmission.
I hope this helps. Over the years I’ve found it’s the easiest way to unload a trailer full of trash. It doesn’t ALWAYS work, but with careful thought and a little common sense, it USUALLY does.
We saw a garbage truck going down the street smoking. The driver noticed it and pulled into the nearest large parking lot. He emptied the burning load there in just a few seconds.
If you were tailgating a large trash packer and the driver got pissed, I suppose he could dump a load in your path quite easily.
Am I the only person who got the mental picture of… :eek:
Never mind…:rolleyes:
Around here, what I think they do is take the trucks to the local transfer station, where there is a big concrete warehouse type building, with a large pit along one side. In that pit is a 53’ trailer for garbage. The trucks back up to the trailer, tip up and dump the trash in. Whatever garbage doesn’t make it in, gets pushed into the trailer by a big front-end loader in the warehouse building.
The trailer then gets hauled to the landfill.
Not coincidentally, on weekends and specific times during the week, residents and commercial customers can drive their trash up into the transfer station. We just chuck it onto the concrete, and the loader pushes it into the trailer.
It’s even funnier if you read “He emptied the burning load there in a few seconds.” after reading the part that reads “I suppose he could dump a load in your path quite easily”. Sounds like habaneros…
By using the army.
Well at least in Italy.