[chuckinca]

Originally Posted by Niels

I don't live in The Villages but I really don't understand why you would need three guys on a truck to do the recycling. :dontknow: Have to agree in that regard.

I live in upstate New York and we have a private garbage company. The recycling truck has only one guy. He picks up all the glass, plastic, cardboard and newspaper recyclables. He drives a special truck (it is kind of large)that is equipped with right hand drive. It has a sliding door which he leaves open when he is in the neighborhood and he can therefore get in and out of truck easily. The truck is also equipped with automatic braking, as soon as he releases the accelerator the truck automatically comes to a stop and keeps the brakes applied until he gets back in the truck and presses the accelerator. This allows him to get out of the vehicle quicker then if he had to stop the truck and apply the emergency brake each time. He does about a dozen houses on our street and is gone within a couple of minutes.

Apparently, our Norcal recycle truck drivers are wimps - the trucks have a mechanical arm that picks up and dumps the bins. The driver doesn't have to get off the comfy seat in the truck to empty the bins.

We have three different types of trucks on pick up day - one for garbage (the smallest bin), one for recycle (the mid size bin) and one for green clippings and food (the largest bin). We also have a small two quart size bucket with a cover to collect just food waste in the house to be put on the green clippings.

This system is local only - other towns have other systems or do it the old fashion way of dumping everything in one can.