It's 5 a.m. and pouring rain. Not one of those mornings you jump out of bed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But at Waste Management's dispatch center near the Portland airport, 40 men and a few women have already arrived at work, laced up their steel-toed boots, strapped on their reflective vests and filled their coffee mugs. 

They're the first shift of the company's residential collection program, and in a few minutes they'll scatter to neighborhoods throughout Northeast and Southeast Portland, covertly whisking away half-eaten apples, empty yogurt containers and dirty diapers. 


Like the tooth fairy, their existence is confirmed by what they leave behind -- empty yellow bins and blue barrels where once there were mounds of discarded debris. 

 ***

By the time most of us hit the snooze button, Shawn Balfour has been up for several hours. 

The 41-year-old garbageman (though if you call him that, be prepared for a reminder that the proper term is waste collection driver) navigates his monstrous green truck down a narrow street just south of Southeast Woodstock Boulevard and 82nd Avenue. 

A car speeds past, nearly sideswiping the truck. 

"Happens all the time," Balfour says. "It gets kind of hair-raising. It's always scarier on days when it's raining because you can't see them, they can't see you." 

Balfour says most people view his job as mindlessly simple -- pick up the trash, move to the next house -- but it takes a great deal of expertise to operate a 17-ton vehicle. 

"We keep safety at the forefront," he says as the truck lumbers down the road. "I don't think people actually realize the amount of time it takes a 35,000-pound truck to stop." 
 
***

Aside from the occasional passing car, Balfour doesn't see another soul for the first couple of hours. He has never met some residents on his earliest route, but that doesn't stop him from looking out for them. 

When a resident goes on vacation without remembering to take their bins to the curb, he jumps out of the cab and empties them anyway. 

"Customer service is one of our biggest tools," he says. 

Balfour has helped customers change tires and clear branches from their yard after a big storm. Once, he called police to report a drunken driver, then followed the vehicle until officers arrived, rushing to the young woman's aid when she crashed into a guardrail. 

Just before 7 a.m., he has the day's first human interaction. A young woman is dragging her bins out at the last minute. Balfour offers to jump out and fetch the compost bin, but she waves him along. 

"She only has a little bit in there," he says. 

 ***

 By the time the sun comes up, Balfour is hours into his shift as a Waste Management truck driver.Customers toward the end of Balfour's route know him better. During the holidays, they leave plates of cookies on the recycling carts and in the summer they bring him Gatorade and ice water. 

He knows which homes have small children and makes a point to wave as they stare out the window at the hulking vehicle. 

Adults are trickier. They usually have questions about the new food composting program. Some like it; others say it's a hassle. 

"I tell them the less amount of stuff we take to the landfill, the less problems our children's children are going to have in the future," he says. 

He admits the program has a downside. It stinks. 

"I don't think any air freshener can take away organics," Balfour says. 

Rotten yard clippings smell like manure. With the recent addition of food to the mix, "I can't even describe it," Balfour says. A few minutes later, the truck passes an area smelling distinctively of skunk. Balfour chuckles. "That's one component." 

 ***

Before the sun is up, Balfour has covered a good chunk of his 900-residence territory. Around 11:30 a.m., he'll meet up with some fellow drivers for lunch at McDonald's. He will clock out at 2 p.m., then head home and pick up his kids from school. 

By night, Balfour is the typical dad. His wife is self-employed and works inconsistent hours, so Balfour cooks dinner and takes the kids to basketball practices and dance rehearsals. Tonight he plans to take his son to a Portland Trail Blazers game, so he'll be up late. He'll awake again at 4 a.m. tomorrow to ensure another week of sanity and sanitation for the next Portland neighborhood.

-- Kelly HouseThe Oregonian  


Article from: http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2012/02/everyday_people_portland_garba.html

Written byJENS MANUEL KROGSTAD
Allison Peterson’s heart sank last week when she discovered her lost iPhone was in the bowels of a garbage truck zigzagging through her Waukee neighborhood.

While her phone’s GPS chip helped her locate the lost device, it was the kindness of the trash collectors that got the phone back into her hands.

The tale begins on Friday, when Peterson couldn’t find the iPhone she had had for about six months. It didn’t take her long to figure out that it most likely had fallen out of her pocket and into an old green recycling bin she had tossed.

Peterson, 39, had the foresight to download a free “Find My iPhone” app to her computer. She clicked on the app and then watched as the blip moved through her neighborhood.

She quickly dashed out of her house to track down the garbage truck. When she found the truck, driver Brent Klaassen stopped his route and called the phone, which later was discovered to have had its ringer turned off.

Klaassen then offered to let Peterson look for the phone at the landfill. While Peterson turned her nose up at that idea, she did call her husband, Mark, to see if he would sift through the trash.

“Once she told me that it would cost around $700 to replace the phone, I said I’d drive up and see what I could do,” said Mark Peterson, who with his wife, has five children.

Several workers for Metro Waste Authority and Waste Management helped Mark Peterson search for the phone Friday, a frigid day.

“The actions of these folks saved me a large amount of money, got me some brownie points with my wife … and made me appreciate how people who didn’t even know me, had nothing to gain, and probably thought I was crazy, took the time to help,” Mark Peterson, 46, wrote in a two-page thank-you letter.

Klaassen and his co-workers have been through similar situations. In their business, people sometimes call in a panic about lost diamond rings, wallets and other valuables.

What made this situation unique is that the owner immediately located her phone through the GPS chip. This gave Klaassen time to separate the trash from the rest of the landfill, said Reo Menning, spokeswoman for Metro Waste Authority.

“If this had been dumped with all the other trucks delivering the garbage, there’s no way this would have been found,” she said.

On the second pass through the pile of trash with a bulldozer, the men spotted the old green recycling bin.

The workers unfolded the container, which had been flattened by the trash compactor, and found the iPhone. The screen was free of scratches and cracks, though there was a slight bend in the body of the phone.

Mark Peterson, by this time giddy with joy, picked up the phone and dialed his wife.

“I found it,” he said.


Article from http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120125/NEWS/301250051/-1/becker_trial/Pricey-cellphone-carted-off-by-garbage-truck-recovered-landfill

A male black bear took an improbable road trip after he hitched a ride on a garbage truck and ended up in downtown Vancouver, Canada, Monday.

Believed to be up to 18 months old, the bear was caught on video roaming on top of a garbage truck as conservation officers climbed the truck in order to tranquillize the bear, all in the heart of downtown Vancouver. It’s unclear where the bear hitched the ride.

While the bear’s appearance surprised many city residents, Dave Cox, a conservation officer with the British Columbia Conservation Officer Service, says it makes sense that a bear ended up in the back of a garbage truck.

“Bears are a very opportunistic animal.”  Cox said of the chance that a bear would get into a garbage truck. “He would probably just climb inside and find a whole bunch of used garbage and had a big feast.”

Once in Vancouver, Cox says, the bear was spotted after sticking his head from the truck.

While Cox says the bear initially appeared nervous as officers approached him,  the bear’s appetite actually kept him calm as officers prepared to tranquillize him.

“His priority is food. No one is harassing him too much and he has a food source in front him,” Cox said. “He’s occupied. ”

While bears and other wild animals are not a common site on the streets of Vancouver, this is not the first time in recent months that a wild animal made its way into an urban area in British Columbia. A cougar was shot Dec. 8 by police officials after being spotted at a ferry terminal in Victoria, Canada.

Luckily for the black bear, officials deemed the unlikely hitchhiker a good candidate to be released back into the wild, because he did not act aggressive or confrontational. “The bear had no priors with us,” Cox said.

As news of a bear in the city captivated residents, a twitter feed started Monday afternoon titled @downtown_bear. Tweeting from the bear’s point of view, it laid out his plans for the day.

“Swim over to Granville island for lunch. I hear their dumpsters are organic,” read one tweet.

In spite of what the tweets reported, the bear was actually tranquillized and tagged before being released back into the wild near Whistler, Canada, earlier this week.


Article From: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/12/hitchhiking-bear-ends-up-on-garbage-truck-in-vancouver/