Garbage Trucks

Garbage Truck Dealers: New, Used and Salvage
TruckRealm.com A link to hundreds of used and salvage sources.
1-800-MITI.com A great source of used garbage trucks.
RDK Truck Sales Refuse Trucks & Garbage Trucks for Sale & Garbage Truck Parts at RDK Truck Sales in Tampa, Florida. See their new & used refuse equipment, Roll-Off Trucks, Front Loaders, Rear Loaders, Side Loaders, Recycling Trucks, Cab & Chassis, Grapple Trucks, Bucket Trucks, Delivery Trailers, Roll-Off Boxes and the 2004-2007 Roll-Off Truck inventory at RDK Truck Sales, the fastest growing international garbage truck dealer in the United States. "Dirt Cheap" garbage trucks for under $35,000.
Trucks and Parts Florida America's largest retail and on-line dealer.
Trucks.com front loaders, rear loaders, side loaders, roll off trucks, recycling trucks. NEW AND USED
New or Used Garbage Truck
Budget Refuse Sales Spartansburg, South Carolina

Classic Refuse Trucks Truck of the Month: 1958 Bowles Full-Pack Front Loader One of two modern Bowles Full-Pack front loaders delivered to the United States Air Force Academy circa 1958. These packers used twin telescopic cylinders and were equipped with hydraulic tailgates.

Cars and the Environment
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The first garbage trucks were open top dump trucks not designed specifically to haul garbage. But the open top truck let small items fly out and smells too. So in the 1920s covered body trucks were designed to handle hauling of garbage.

The manufacturer of the refuse body is usually separate from the chassis. So here are some of the companies developing refuse bodies:
1930s-1940s covered hoppers by Heil, Leach, Garwood
1920s-1950s rotary loaders by Keller & Knappisch, Garwood, City Tank
1930s to 1950s rear loader compactors by Garwood, Leach, Heil
In 1938 the Garwood Load Packer revolutionized the industry with a compactor in the truck itself.
1940s to 1950s side loader compactors by PakMor, M-B Packer
1950s to 1980s front end loaders by Dempster, Garwood, Heil 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. 1955 brought the Dempster Dumpmaster (first front loader).

Classifications of garbage trucks

* Front loaders generally service commercial and industrial sites using dumpsters (UK term is large wheelie bins).
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 the contents of trash cans into. The rear loader is usually equipped with some type of compactor that will compress the garbage, and move it towards the front of the vehicle.

* Side loaders are versions of either front or rear loaders that lift small trash containers or have openings on either side to deposit trash. Some side loaders are equipped with a mechanical remote-control arm that grasps a trash container such as a wheeled bin and empties it into the truck in the same manner as front loaders.

* Pneumatic collection, almost a 24 ton vacuum cleaner. On the top it has a crane with a tube and a mouthpiece that fits in a hole, usually hidden under a plate under the sidewalk. From here it will suck up garbage from an underground installation. The system usually allows the driver to "pick up" the garbage, even if the access is blocked by cars, snow or other barriers.

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

Garbage trucks empty their trash in landfills or combustion facilities. Most rear loaders lift the rear section so that the garbage will spill out. Front loaders more commonly have a moving wall that pushes the garbage out. Some larger landfills tip the entire truck.

Other improvements to garbage trucks

The main difficulty with early trucks 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.

In 1937 George Dempster invented the Dempster-Dumpster system in which wheeled garbage containers were mechanically tipped into the garbage truck. His containers were known as Dumpsters, so here is where that word came from.

Operators want a 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.

As well as garbage trucks, we have heard them referred to as trash truck, waste collection vehicle, refuse truck, dustcart, or sometimes dustbin wagon in the U.K.


1950 Leach Packmaster


Salvage Sale Dot Com 1995 Volvo WXLL64 Front Load Garbage Truck Body Manufacturer: Heil Body Model: Half-Pack 612-2522 Body Size: 23 Yard Engine Model: CAT 3306C/300HP Diesel


The "Mairie de Nice" seems to prefer home-grown Renault's


1950 Roto-Pac


In Nice, France, narrow streets dictate more compact bodies


Summer in Nice! Thousands of tourists create tons of extra effort every day.


1946 Heil Colecto-Pak

Container garbage trucks are important too.

La direction du nettoiement is the "direction of cleaning" and is critical to the cleanliness of the city.
This organization encompasses not only garbage trucks, but sweepers, vacuums, water trucks. Some of the trucks are true "mini's"! One of their missions is FRAP (in French: la Force Rapide Action Propreté). This is the Rapid Action Force for Cleanliness. Its main mission is to answer any intervention in 2 hours in order to fight effectively against the dirtiness, which undermines the framework of life and the environment of our city.


No, we are not suddenly changing to a fire truck WebSite. Just happened to spot this one when we were photographing garbage trucks. The tie is that both are 'municipal'. This one is high wheels because there are many off-road fires in the dry season.


This one was attending the inauguration of the new Nice tramway


Not even a truck, but operated by the same department that operates the garbage trucks. This boat (and three sisters) clean the beach daily.

The roads to the ski stations are close (in respect to distance) to Nice, but they are a lot different. December 2008 saw avalanches. Before anybody starts running Olympics there, someone has to get serious about snow fighting. You can't use a little "city plow" like the one at the bottom. You need a modern version of the one at the left. It is a 1949 Walter Snow Fighter from snow country (New Hartford, New York). Truck has a "V" plow in front and "wing" on one side. Four Wheel Drive? But, of course. Look at the chains!

Garbage trucks become snow plows when necessary in places like New York City. See some great snow plow pictures and see some snow plows for sale.

Garbage Truck Snow Plow in New York City

	County Waste in upstate New York is collecting trash and recycleables in different compartments of same truck!!

OK enough non-garbage trucks on this page (well! fire trucks are called if garbage trucks don't pick up the garbage, garbage trucks are called after fires, and garbage trucks turn into snow plows sometimes after a snowfall). Anyway, please continue on to our old vehicles page. old cars old trucks old tractors

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Garbage Truck Manufacturers
McNeilus (Flint, Michigan) Owned by Oshkosh Truck Corporation. Selection of quality, previously owned refuse trucks available.
Amrep, Inc. (Ontario, California) Front loader \| Automated Side Loader \| Manual Side Loader \| Roll-Off \| Recycling \| Trailers
Pac-Mor Manufacturing (San Antonio, Texas)
Lodal (Kingsford, Michigan) Custom built refuse haulers
Petersen Industries (Lake Wales, Florida) Petersen's Lightning Loader grapple trucks have been the industry standard since 1979. Over 700 cities and counties use Petersen loaders, as well as most of the major waste companies.
Wayne Engineering Corporation (Cedar Falls, Iowa) For nearly 50 years, Wayne Engineering Corporation has provided customers worldwide with the latest in refuse collection equipment. Wayne is a leading manufacturer of automated side loaders, manual side loaders, satellite vehicles, rear loaders, recycling vehicles, garbage trucks, trash trucks, refuse trucks, Including: the Curbtender, Pup, Royal GT, PowerLynx, Super Series, and the CargoMaster.
Heil Manufacturing (Fort Payne, Alabama) Refuse and recycling collection vehicles are their passion. Heil is a subsidiary of Dover Industries.
Crane Carrier Corporation (Tulsa, Oklahoma) Crane Carrier Company is a leading manufacturer of heavy-duty, custom-built, specialty vehicles including refuse collection trucks, as well as, custom chassis serving the construction and agricultural vocations.
Edge Manufacturing Company (Corona, California)
Bridgeport Manufacturing (Bridgeport, Texas)
NuLife Environmental (Easley, South Carolina) Nu-Life Environmental Inc. is your supplier of environmental equipment for refuse and solid waste handling. NuLife manufactures all sizes of dumpsters and open top roll-off containers, and also operates an extensive facility to install on a chassis the hoists, hooklifts, and trailers to carry these containers, as well as the packer bodies for garbage trucks to service the containers. In addition to manufacturing, Nu-Life Environmental is also a dealer for many reputable companies such as Galbreath, Marathon, EZ-Pack, Stellar, and New-Way to name a few, and represents a full line of waste compactors, roll-off containers, packer bodies, hooklifts, and hoists produced by these leading manufacturers.
Kann Manufacturing (Guttenberg, Iowa) Also does agricultural products
GH Manufacturing (Arlington, Texas) Also does agricultural products
GSP Marketing (Somerset, Pennsylvania)

All about Garbage Trucks
History of refuse collection (or the garbage truck). Background on the garbage truck and how they are made.