St. Pete runs a fleet best described as kick ass, nothing but glorious DuraPack 7000s mated to Autocars, save for a handful of Pete 320s. Combine this with the fact that St. Pete has a healthy network of alleys littered with 300 gallon bins (more on those later) and you begin to understand why I'm so excited about the city's sanitation department. Trucks aside St. Petersburg is a cool place so I was happy to make the drive 3 separate times to get this footage, mostly in the Old Northeast section of the city. The astute viewer will notice 4 different trucks are featured. I have footage of a 5th already posted as part of Garbage Trucks Part IV.
St. Pete was one of the first cities to automate collection in the late 70s and and naturally was a pioneer in the practice. The design for all the carts used is owned by the city of St. Petersburg itself, and licensed out to cart manufacturers. To handle these carts the trucks are equipped with Heil's universal grabber which easily takes care of the wide range of cart sizes, from 60s all the way to the massive 300 gallon alley bins, without ever having to change grippers.
All is not perfect in St. Petersburg. The city's recycling collection is pretty lame. While this was being filmed WSI had the contract to collect from the bins seen in some shots, now Waste Pro does. On the last of my filming trips I spotted a Waste Pro GS Recycler running through the streets, no doubt in preparation to take over the routes. I'm sure that once the city decides to start collecting recyclables itself with full size bins participation rates and volumes will increase. It would be incredibly awesome to see some blue versions of these carts (especially the 300s) being collected by the city's own trucks.
Anyway, thanks to the awesome drivers. All very friendly and professional, not to mention pros at moving those trucks around in the alleys. Filmed August 2012.
5 окт 2024
