Sanitation workers, also called Trash Collectors and Garbage Collectors, serve a vital service to the community. We throw away more than 160 million tons of trash (called solid waste) each year in the U.S. To help you understand how much trash that is, consider the following facts:

Trash Facts:

• The average American throws away 3.5 pounds of trash per day.
• To give you an idea of how much trash we generate here in the United States, imagine a hole the size of a football field, including the end zones. If we bury all of the trash we produce in just one year, that hole would be 100 miles deep!
• Every year we fill enough garbage trucks to form a line that would stretch from the earth, halfway to the moon.
• Each day the United States throws away enough trash to fill 63,000 garbage trucks.

In the early days, trash was simply thrown into the street. As you can imagine, this attracted bugs and rats and created very dirty conditions that caused a lot of disease. There have been many ideas to take care of garbage. Trash used to be burned in some cities - it still is incinerated but not as much as it used to. "Piggeries" were created so that pigs could eat the food trash. Trash was also taken out to the oceans and dumped there - something we know we shouldn't do today. Landfills and garbage dumps, which is what we do now, were created to help handle the garbage problem. But someone has to bring the trash to the garbage dumps and landfills - that's what a santitation worker does.

During the 1920’s men used teams of horse–drawn garbage wagons to collect the community garbage. In 1925, the horse–drawn wagons were replaced with motorized collection vehicles that were able to transport garbage with a weight up to 5 tons.

FUN FACT: In England a garbage truck is called a Dustcart, or sometimes Dustbin Wagon.

Today garbage trucks come in four different styles, Front loaders, rear loaders, side loader, and pneumatic loaders. The free loader is designed to pick up trash from service and commercial industries. The truck has automated forks on the front which are in alignment with the sleeves of the dumpster. Rear loaders pick up trash in residential areas. There is an opening at the rear so that the trash collector can throw garbage bags into. Side loaders have similar features to that of the front and rear loaders and usually only lift trash containers. There are openings on each side to throw the trash in. The last type of trash collector is called a pneumatic collector which acts like a huge vacuum cleaner which can suck up to 24 tons of trash!! It is located under a plate, under the sidewalk.

FUN FACT: An elephant weighs 4- 8 tons. That means that it would take a maximum of 6 elephants to weigh 24 tons. Can you imagine a vacuum cleaner which is strong enough to vacuum up 6 elephants?

A trash collector’s job is not easy. Trash smells bad , is difficult to collect, and  can at times be very demanding in terms of making sure that all the trash cans in the community are emptied. Garbage has to be collected no matter how good or bad the weather is. If it isn't collected it can cause many problems. Often trash collectors will have to wear some type of outfit which either protects their clothes underneath or is something the trash collector can change in and out of.

Here is what a trash collector does: 

• Drives the trash truck.
• Collects trash cans from every house.
• Dumps the trash into the truck.
• Responsible for operating hoisting devices  that  raises refuse to rear of the truck  and empties  contents into an enclosed truck body.

Recycling is a very important part of what we do with trash today. Recycling means that garbage is put into different containers according to what it is so that is can be melted down and reused.  This keeps trash in our landfills and garbage dumps from overflowing. Help your trash collectors and your communities by recycling.

So smile at a garbage collector - they have a very hard job!