Picking Up by Robin Lang all about Department of Sanitation New York City

So to pick up 10,000 tons of trash a day one needs a real arsenal of artillery really, because after all it is a war a war against the garbage.

The Heil 5000 is NYC's battle tank of choice and main artillery piece.

Which we will talk more about tomorrow.

 

I have to look up the living wall I apologize I don’t know what that is I’m learning right along with everyone else.

 

DSNY Flusher Truck washing the streets.

 

City of San Francisco Street Flusher Truck.
Given the current state of San Francisco the City of San Francisco Public Works department is getting a lot of use out of there street flushing and street sweeping equipment.

 

Turns out living walls are a popular thing in NYC and they say green up the city and make it look nice, so it looks like your wall is still there, good thing too, because it covers up that dreadful sanitation truck garage.

 

So here we are 10,000 tons of trash to collect a day, when it comes to heavy lifting and heavy trucking the Department of Sanitation of New York City is one of the heaviest trucking operations in the United States, certainly the largest public/government trucking operation. DSNY is the largest municipal garbage hauling operation in North America. Bigger then LA, Bigger then Chicago Chicago is small compared to DSNY and bigger then Miami, Boston, Cleveland, Plano, Denver, St. Louis etc etc.

Now to collect that garbage you need dependable top of the line tough equipment. Each route is a minimum of 12.5 tons.

Any heavy operation like that doesn't have time for down time or unreliable equipment so when DSNY selected vehicles they went for the most maneuverable and the most reliable.

What's interesting though about DSNY is there garbage collection methods are actually very simple no high tech automated side loaders none of that, just old fashioned 2 man rear load garbage trucks none of the fancy autoloaders like you see in the fancy suburbs or newer cities like Prescott and Scottsdale, Arizona.

Actually for the record the modern day automated side loader was actually invented and first put to use and built by The City of Scottsdale, Arizona City Services Department, in the late 1960s, but will talk about that later.

Anyhow it's very simple residential buildings and houses and government buildings they just bag there trash into brown bags and literally throw the bags on the street in a big pile.

The way it works is every morning at the garage the supervisor gives each garbage crew a card and the card tells them what there collection route for that day is going to be, it could be maybe one side of the street a mile long or it could be both sides of the street a half mile long it depends.

The fact though DSNY for what they do are very dependent on rear load garbage trucks. Most of there fleet is rear load, but when you have a city of 8 million you need a heavy duty rear loader that can pack a massive punch.

DSNY utilizes now a days mostly Mack cabs and chassis in fact most of all there rear load trucks are Macks. There low to the ground and easy to hop in and out of.

As far as packer bodies go, you do see some McNeilus packers coming in McNeilus is very popular packer body in recent years lots of companies have been buying McNeilus trucks but they are not the only one, Leach and Heil are also two major packer body manufacturers. Leach the 2RII was #1 in it's day it was probably the best main stream packer body built bar far it was top of the heap in terms of packing power and ability to collect garbage for specifications and price point it was a very very popular packer body I know the suburbs here in Cleveland, Ohio a lot of them were prone to purchase Leach Packers and The City of Millwauke, and Chicago were big customers of Leach products.

DSNY though was not a customer of Leach's when it came to packer bodies in modern time DSNY went with the Heil Formula 5000 as there main packer body. Here is why:

The history dates back years ago in 1932 when DSNY designed there own collection truck and contracted out to Garwood Body Company and Heil Body company to build what was known as the DSNY escalator trucks. At the time Garwood and Heil were the biggest refuse packer body manufacturers in the United States.

Heil and Garwood were fierce competitors and were both always gunning for DSNY business, both companies made packer bodies that were almost identical and actually the rivalry between Garwood and Heil in the 1930s and 1940s is what actually sparked the modern day refuse body manufacturing industry and it's what really sparked all the technical innovations in refuse body manufacturing.


Classic Refuse Trucks. com the source of my information on refuse bodies.
This is the DSNY escalator truck which basically the trash went up an escalator (really a conveyor chain) and dumped into the body of the truck.

Heil and Garwood manufactured these bodies for DSNY.

Garwood eventually would close down, but Heil would go on to continue to make self packing trucks and do much more in the world of rear load garbage trucks.

 

So here we are the last chapter of the machine cost of the DSNY, here it is the modern day battle tank the Heil Formula 5000, now a days it's the HE5000 or Durapak 5000.

The Heil Formual 5000 is Heils mainline heavy/sever duty major fleet truck.

Originally crafted from the Garwood 900 the Heil 5000 was launched in 1979. Originally the Heil 5000 was a one lever truck, one pull of the lever sent the packer blade on a full cycle.

However in the 1980s safety rules changed and a second lever had to be added. One pull of the first lever gets the packer blade in position then the second lever causes the blade to finish the cycle.

Rear loader garbage truck packer blades are very strong, and are capable of cutting off human limbs.

With a one pull one cycle pack, people if they were standing in the hopper for some reason (you should never ever stand in the hopper of a rear load garbage truck it's very dangerous and you can get hurt or killed by doing something like that.)
the one cycle pack will grab onto anything and everything and whoops there goes an arm or leg or finger.

So by having the packer stop 7" above the hopper floor it gives anyone a minute to get clear of the packer blade.

Anyhow the Heil Formula 5000 was well built, strong running and had a massive 3.8 yard hopper, dependable and serviceable which made it a favorite among the countries biggest fleets such as Browning and Ferrious Industries and of course DSNY.

Now the Heil Formula 5000 was built to compete with another mainstay truck at the time the Leach 2RII which was and still is a very popular truck. Why today I was at a stop and the county recycling board showed up to empty the dumpster and they had a 25 yard Leach 2R.

1991 Leach 2R the big 31 yard capacity body.

The Leach 2R had one edge over the Heil 5000 and that's the fact that the 2R had a bigger "throat" which made it a little more likeable for heavy demolition construction contractors, but for garbage collection that doesn't mean anything and the 2R and Heil 5000 could pretty much compete head on. The Heil 5000 tough as nails, strong, efficient.

Given DSNY's history with Heil the 5000 which was Heils main bruiser truck was the DSNY's main choice.

(City of Scottsdale, AZ)
Now DSNY doesn't buy anything stock and had all sorts of ad on's and customization for Heil especially in the lighting department, but with it's heavy duty platform and broad customer base the Heil 5000 is a favorite of large garbage fleets and is DSNY's main refuse body.