georgewuzheer's video: Garbage Trucks: Olympic Disposal

Follow along for a day in the operations of the old Olympic Disposal of Montebello, California. Though the majority of their work consisted of commercial front load accounts in Long Beach handled by a trio of McNeilus Pacific Series on Peterbilt 320s, I instead rode along with Hector on his sprawling route spanning the far reaches of Los Angeles proper. Hitching a ride with Bill to Olympic's yard at 2 A.M. in order to fit in with Bill's work schedule meant I would be an hour early for the ride along, so I hopped the fence in front of a seemingly oblivious security guard and caught a surprisingly comfortable cat nap in Olympic's newest truck, a totally virgin CNG MRU/Amrep roll off with plastic still on the seats and paint still on the rails. Once Hector arrived we fueled up the MR, rolled out around 3 A.M., and knocked out a couple stops in the surrounding industrial areas before making our way to the hustle and bustle of the early morning produce markets near Downtown LA. Then some downtown alleyway stops, south through the city, and into Compton where we finished the first load, grossing out with about 9 tons of payload on the relatively heavy Mack MR. The packer shot at 1:05 shows what those 9 tons look like in a standard 40-ish yard Hardox body. Note the height of the packer relative to the body. With the Hardox model's lower profile the usual ½ height blade is really closer to ¾ of the height of the hopper. A quick jaunt (by LA freeway standards anyway) north led to Puente Hills Landfill to unload. At the time the largest active landfill site in the United States, I was lucky to experience the sheer scale of the Puente Hills operation one last time before it closed 2 weeks later on the 31st of the month. After dumping Hector had a few more stops in the industrial areas west of LA before finishing up for the day. The second half of the video shows Olympic's 320/Amrep roll off handling a 40yd box in the Montebello yard. Can't thank Richard at Olympic enough for setting up an amazing ride-along experience. Same goes for Hector, the man behind the wheel of the MR, for having me along. Props to Bill for putting up with my flatulence while I crashed at his place for a few days. Filmed February 13th and October 9th, 2013.