These behind the scenes tours are truly fascinating. I was watching a similar truck come pick up my garbage last week and thought of my own childhood memory of garbage pickup in the 1960s. That was a driver who stayed inside plus two guys who rode on each back corner of the truck doing the pickup. Those guys didn't seem to be racing against time like the lone operator does now. And of course all of the stuff going into the truck would end up in a landfill. So we are getting more efficient though we can still do more, like question how much we need stuff in the first place.
Interesting “behind the scenes” Michael! We need a lot more education about recycling, especially organic and need a lot more of these types of processing centers.
When i was a kid, there was no recycling in my town (Lévis, QC). i don't know how i had heard our city had a paper recycling plant (called VIA). I convinced 3 of my friends to go door to door each Sunday with a wheelie cart and we would ask the neighbours to give us their junk paper, empty cereal boxes, this week's flyers etc and bring that back and fill my dad's trunk, then bring it to the recycling plant. Sometimes, we had to drive there twice. Then a few years later, the blue bins appeared. True story 💜
Simply amazing, like every episode! Here goes my suggestion for a tour: how about a visit to Anian's facilities to see how they make one these legendary shirts of yours eh? Tks, Cheers!
From being a Gardien Côtier to a Waste and Recycling Collector, we’ve seen quite the character arc and it’s safe to say that Mike could read a Telephone Directory and I’d be invested in his Professional Success 😂
one of the most crucial jobs of our unfortunate age of consumption and waste, thank you for your essential service Tino and the whole recycling team 💯👏👏👏 and thank you for another interesting content Mike 👍👏👏👏
Exactly! I produce almost no "real" waste (the black bin) and little food waste (we have a smaller brown bin for that) but my full sized blue bin (recycling) is always FULL. And we don't have those nifty yellow bags here in Québec!
I want this in the US. All I've been taught growing up is throw all recyclables in one bin and everything else in the trash. This seems much more efficient. (Maybe some places in the US have this [haven't looked] but it's not where I live.)
When recycling started where I live in the US in the late 80s there were separate bins for paper, plastic, and glass. Eventually it changed to one big bin making me think a lot of this stuff isn't getting recycled.
Thanks Mike! I enjoy your take on “adventure “, from travels to the various jobs that need to be done. I always look forward to your weekly release. Cheers.
I am a packaging engineer meaning I design a large portion of that stuff. Its nice to see a city doing it right. (Atleast by North American standards) too many cities are behind the curve
This is so cool seeing you do these videos behind the scenes of public works and infrastructure. I wonder if you're going to do things with waterworks and sewerage too!
We've been bi-weekly for years here (Lévis, QC). One week trash, one week recycling. I also love that we can put leaves (or grass) in the food waste bins and in the summer and fall, they pick them up more often (weekly) so you can get th eleaves off your yard every week (We have lots of mature trees). 🍁
I remember one of your vlogs that you made last year. It was of you riding your bike. It was such a coincidence when you crossed paths with your sister on your bike. Situations like that make life interesting.
5:47 Canuck the Crow would have been great for bringing anything shiny to the recycling LOL! With how he used to pick up knives and stuff! Did he ever reappear or is he still missing??? ❤
I don't understand why this kind of system is not in place in every city in the USA with a population over 100k. It would go a long ways to helping us clean up our environment.
Thanks for sharing what Burnaby is doing. Mountain View, California, has a similar set-up but we have a split recycle tote with one side for glass/plastics/cans and another side for paper. It makes it easier for the drivers because they don't have to get out of the truck. But it means more effort downstream when all of the various metals/glass types/plastics have to be separated. Like Burnaby residents we put our food waste in with our garden waste for composting. Our household waste is picked up every week whereas our recycling is taken every other week. We can take electronics and other materials to a facility we share with other cities. All that said, it looks like Burnaby is far ahead of us in many ways. PS My last time in Burnaby was participating in the 5K and the 10K at the stadium and the woods of Central Park during Gay Games III in 1990. Such a great experience! PPS When I carried mail for the US Post Office Department, we drove some trucks standing up It took a bit to get used to.
Great explanation of what happens with our trash! It also shows what can be possible if everyone was aware of how they dispose of the waste they create. Thank you for posting!
I love Burnaby Eco Centre!! It's so much cleaner than before. The staff there are always very friendly ! Next time, I hope I'll be able to spot Caprice when I go there! SO COOL!!!!!!!
Mike - now this is a topic I NEVER would have thought you would cover in one of your videos. Your mind is like a fertile field - tilled, fertilized, and watered; sprouting an endless array of ideas for content. I don't know what video topic you are going to come up with next but I know I want to be there to watch it!
Makes sense about the electronics don't need batterys exploding in the truck and catching fire and the mercury going into the environment plus here where I live electronics are considered hazardous waste
I love how much of a priority they've made recycling and how accessible it is. I have a magnet in my kitchen of all the things my local refuse and recycling center will take in the bins and there's a lot of things they don't take in the bins or at all.
Cool video I pass by the eco Center all the time on my rides (considering it’s right on the Central Valley greenway trail) I never thought of what was behind those fences, now I know :) that’s gonna change the way I look at it
I think the bird has the highest job with benefits. hehe Interesting to see what all is involved in someone else's job. A day in the life of a recycling truck driver was fun.
Aw my 3yo son loves the garbage truck when it comes to our house. He also goes to the window to see them. He didn’t know what to do when one of the drivers waved at him one day lol. They’re sweet, we love them! 😃
Ontario needs to adopt some of these methods. Were filling landfills at such an alarming rate with things that can be recycled and prolong those landfills lives.
Would be great to see a follow-up about the yard waste/composting bin pickup and more about how that changed garbage collection in Burnaby over these last few years. Also what's allowed to go into the yard waste/composting (gum? House plants? Poison ivy? pet food? natural pet litter? fast food containers? etc.) Yeah it's Burnaby-centric but maybe it could educate other cities looking to make some changes :)
I live in Ontario since 2015 and today, for the first time, i noticed the steering wheel was "turning on its own". Then i asked a friend how and he told me recycling trucks have 2 steerings wheel and that's how i ended up here watching this video haha. Thanks for showing us!
I used to work as an admin at a Recycling non profit here in the States! When we'd have an open house a couple of times a year, kids and adults were fascinated by the trucks! ♻️🚚
Awesome! I recycle everything, including when we go for fast food (I bring the packaging home). I remember the days before recycling began in BC and EVERYTHING went in the trash. Fast forward to today --> now I maybe have one small bag of trash each month. So grateful for the recycling pickup service. :)
80% is recycled sure but the number is much lower due to contaminated products examples like food in plastic cigs in jars etc not as high as you think its a scam!
Caprice isn't doing a very good job. I used to walk my dog all over this area and my dog would find bones EVERYWHERE that crows and gulls had taken from the ECO centre. I would have to pull up to 10 bones out of my dogs mouth every walk. Very frustrating!
Downey thank you so much for another educational video thank you so much I just shared it with my family Canada is badass I hope the rest of the countries can catch up I'm doing my part by leaving California because California has gone to hell and a handbasket and starting a new life in another state I didn't know where I was going but it did not matter because I'm taking Downey live and his crew with me so stay tuned they always come up with great videos Joe Dirt of a new destination God bless
Watching from the UK. It is interesting to see that other Countries also have public recycling centres. Over here, we refer to them as civic amenity centres, but the principle is the same. It appears that, in Burnaby at least, the Municipal Council runs the whole waste process whilst over here, kerbside collections are the responsibility of the Town, City or Borough Council, whilst the civic amenity centres are run by the County Councils. The mad thing is that not all local Councils collect the same recycling. I live in the City of Colchester and our Council runs bi-weekly collections and picks up glass, plastics, card/paper, textiles, tins, green waste and food waste (this goes to a biomass facility in a different Council area) as part of our Council Tax. However, in the bordering Council area of Tendring (still with the County of Essex), they don't pick up green waste for free (they charge extra on top). They also collect tetra packs which Colchester doesn't.
Great educational video! My family lives in Surrey. You need to do something with semiahmoo bulldozing and trucking. He works on the railroad in white rock. Aubrey Stevens.
After recycling for over 40 yrs, in different parts of British Columbia now it's a good turn to pay it forward and maintain recycling, in other projects, their doing projects to cleanse the ocean of pieces of plastic on the Ocean Clean up are now to the point whereby they are making sunglasses from plastic with a tracker so that the purchaser can track their sunglasses, . or use the plastics from bottles etc to make plastic padding for children's parks etc. It's time for recycling to be re-purposed and not just recycled for the purpose of recycling. Thank you for all your years in services recycle people, lets's get this done!
Why is it that Canada and everywhere else the US of a when it comes to recycling and infrastructure??? Why is the US of a so behind in times.? And thank you Downey live for sharing your beautiful country. And with that it changed me to be American it shames me to say I'm American
I love BC's recycling system, I hope more places integrate something similar. In Richmond we have the same schedule and a big depot as well as smaller ones around town. They keep making improvements and adding to the list of items accepted. I discovered, just today, that they updated the website to allow you to search all kinds of household items to find out how and where to dispose of them.
I just started as a recycling driver after leaving the military and I gotta say this is a good documentary. The only thing it dose gloss over is the fact that 85% dose go to landfill after the recycling centre. Since Asia stopped taking our stuff we generally just burn it and they buried it anyways so not much change.
I'm in mission and the dump is way in the middle of know where. A few years ago I brought a mattress in and got charged more because I wasn't the central mission. How does that make sense? Did I bring the mattress to them? Doesn't cost them any more to recycle. This is why so many sofas mattress gets dumped. Or you gotta hang on to them until the next spring cleanup. No one has space for that. For the next mattress, I'll either take apart and work it into my garbage or bring it to a person that has an incinerator.
The reality is not a lot of people have storage space and it takes time and gas money to take your electronics in. My mom is is abbotsford, they stopped allowing you to put glass in the blue bin for safety reasons yet charge metal cans are allowed. They don't have a glass bin pick up. Everyone now puts glass in the garbage. Agriculture waste is even more ridiculous round bale plastic can't be recycled or netting, glass from medicine bottles goes in the trash. Glass is one of the easiest items to recycle.
Great video, but hate to break it to the lady trying to look smart, but compost does not turn into sand… sand is not an organic compound. It’s basically just beaten down rock. Good try though!
Mary on Richard's phone recycling can be a lifestyle should be a lifestyle this phone I'm on was recycled from my husband when he passed away both of us were recyclers are home was moved therefore recycled the lot that we placed it on used to be a construction dump which we cleaned up all our furniture is used thus recycled it become the whole lifestyle and believe me it's been cheaper to live this way and we have better quality items that were previously loved keep it up I love your adventures. take me away
My city says it want to move towards his level of recycling- we are not there yet, but we are working on it! I can’t wait until we can put kitchen scraps in my green waste bin, right now it’s only for garden waste.
When I was a wee lad back in the 1950's, there was no recycling. The garbage truck came once a week and took everything to a land fill on the shores of San Francisco Bay. Today that dumping area is called Seal Point Park in San Mateo.
