why are LA garbage trucks so loud! (maintenance, restaurants)

[TurcoLoco]

They have to invent hybrid engines so they can even run on random trash/waste like the car in Back2theFuture3. At that point, they really wouldn't be collecting anything other than driving around re-fueling I suppose?

[californio sur]

This is funny but true. The trouble with garbage day in California is that every house has 3 different garbage cans. The black containers are for regular garbage; the blue are for paper\ recycled garbage and the green containers for grass cuttings. That means 3 different garbage trucks that, of-course come hours apart and go up one side of the street and come back for the other side. The trucks speed between each group of cans even if it is only a few feet then hit their loud brakes, the mechanical arm drops the cans back onto the street where they hit other cans and fall over, dogs are barking everywhere. Anyone expecting to sleep in on garbage day better forget it.

[Lovehound]

I wish they wouldn't start so early. I can hear them several blocks away shortly after 6 a.m. and the first truck often does my street before 7 a.m. I understand they have a long day and lots of work to do but I wish they could stay out of residential streets until after 7 a.m.

[californio sur]

Originally Posted by Lovehound

I wish they wouldn't start so early. I can hear them several blocks away shortly after 6 a.m. and the first truck often does my street before 7 a.m. I understand they have a long day and lots of work to do but I wish they could stay out of residential streets until after 7 a.m.

Agree, it's like an early alarm clock. I can hear the trucks blocks away even before the sun comes up. I wonder how it is in other parts of the nation?

[Eric Cloud]

I wake up to loud trucks all the time, too.

I feel like its natural now, I would miss them if they left actually.

[Fontucky]

Originally Posted by californio sur

This is funny but true. The trouble with garbage day in California is that every house has 3 different garbage cans.

Some of us have dumpsters... 1 visit a week from the garbaaaawge trook, anywhere between 0900 and 1400. And no pesky sorting.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by californio sur

Agree, it's like an early alarm clock. I can hear the trucks blocks away even before the sun comes up. I wonder how it is in other parts of the nation?

Here we have one container and it's picked up at a civilized 8:30 a.m. on Monday, except for holidays.

In downtown Sacramento the trash and recycle are picked up on one side of the street one day, on the other side of the street another day and bins are picked up in the alleys on yet another day. Pick-up used to start at about 6:00 a.m. and, yes, those trucks are noisy. They also pick up on holidays, all of them, if that's your normal trash day.

What was equally annoying was the homeless rummaging through the recycle containers all night long before pick-up mornings, and their grocery carts rattling and crashing along the streets, sidewalks and alleys; not to mention loud fights over the "treasures."

Thank God I'm a country boy!

[Lovehound]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

What was equally annoying was the homeless rummaging through the recycle containers all night long before pick-up mornings, and their grocery carts rattling and crashing along the streets, sidewalks and alleys; not to mention loud fights over the "treasures."

That's another reason the early trucks annoy me, because if I want to put my trash out at the last minute before the trucks come that means hauling them out in the pre-dawn morning before 7:00, sometimes before 6:30 if the trucks sound like they're near. I'd rather be doing this at 7:30... Or really I'd rather that the bums didn't sort through my trash, but if I put it out the night before then that's going to happen.

[californio sur]

Originally Posted by Fontucky

Some of us have dumpsters... 1 visit a week from the garbaaaawge trook, anywhere between 0900 and 1400. And no pesky sorting.

I thought only stores and restaurants didn't have to sort the garbage?

[Dunbar42]

I started working from my apartment this year and the gardeners and garbage trucks are pretty annoying. I have to hope nobody calls when the gardeners are making a racket outside my window. I have no idea why they need to mow the lawn twice a week either. The garbage trucks inevitably set of 3-4 car alarms.

BTW, I have to assume that Southern California's failure to embrace the concept of alleys is a big part of it. Growing up in suburban Chicago I never noticed the garbage trucks.