The Waste Truck

Lets Talk Trash, The Early Garbage Trucks

The very first Garbage Trucks came about the same time as motorized transportation.  Open trash collection wagons drawn by horses went out of favor, with the advent of the motorized truck.  Original models of garbage trucks featured open top bodies, which were often smelly, fly attracting, and unsanitary at best.  They were soon replaced in the 1920’s by closed body trucks. This began the evolution of the garbage trucks we know them today.

The first closed body garbage trucks, although a welcome improvement over the open body styles, still presented their share of problems to the sanitation workers who had to load and unload the truck by hand.  In order to get the trash into the truck the workers would have to bring the trash can to shoulder level, and then dump the trash into the truck.  It didn’t take too long to note that a better system was needed.  The sanitation workers needed a way for the trash cans to be loaded at a lower level, and then have some mechanism magically “lift” the can up and into the truck.
In 1929, the Heil Company answered the need with the introduction of the first “hopper” style truck, which was called the “Heil Collecto”.  This early garbage truck featured a chain driven lift, located on the side of the truck, that brought the trash to the top of the truck, dumped it, and then lowered for the next can.  It featured an “apron” which kept the opening shut, while the lift was in the down position. It became a common sight on the streets of America throughout much of the 1930’s and 1940’s.  

The “Heil Collecto” garbage truck was replaced by the “Heil Collecto-Pak” in the late Forties.  This truck was designed with the hopper at the rear, and included a new “compaction” feature which allowed the trash to be compressed, so as to allow the truck to have a larger capacity. This concept evolved into the front end loader truck that is common today, picking up and unloading the familiar metal dumpsters.

With the development of new hydraulic systems, and larger capacity truck bodies, the garbage truck continued to evolve through the efforts of companies who manufactured these early trucks. Prominent companies that were responsible for many of these innovations included, Heil, Garwood, Leach, Peabody, Cobey, and Dempster Truck Co.