![]() It is made from steel plate and slides on plastic, steel, or bronze shoes. The packer blade, or head, is used to periodically compress the garbage inside the body. The lift arms and forks on a front loader are cut from thick steel plates, and the torque tubes are made from thick-walled, seamless steel tubing. This helps minimize the weight of the body, and therefore, maximize the weight of trash the truck can carry. Different thicknesses of sheet or plate are used for different areas of the body, depending on the stresses expected in that area. The body floor, sides, top, and ends are made of steel sheet or plate and are reinforced with formed steel channels. Most of the body components on a garbage truck are made of steel. In order to remain competitive, these companies have designed trucks that are highly specialized and automated in an effort to deal with an ever-increasing amount of trash at the lowest cost. Out of this trend have emerged two or three giant refuse companies, each owning thousands of trucks. Today, many municipalities in the United States have contracted with private firms to pick up their trash and dispose of it, rather than do it themselves. ![]() This allowed each truck to carry more trash per load. The refuse vehicle industry responded in the late 1950s with the development of the first enclosed refuse trucks, utilizing hydraulic rams to compress the trash as it was collected. Paper plates, plastic cups, paper towels and napkins, disposable diapers, and brown paper lunch bags all clogged the trash cans. Many of the new products were meant to be used once and thrown away. After years of restrictions and shortages during World War II, people eagerly replaced old products with new ones. The postwar consumer boom of the 1950s in the United States led to a significant increase in trash. The cry of "Here comes the garbage truck" was still the signal to go inside and close your windows. By the 1920s, motor power had replaced horse power, but little else had changed. In the 1800s horse-drawn, four-wheeled wagons moved slowly down alleyways as garbagemen hoisted reeking barrels filled with wet garbage and dumped them into the open wagon bed. The first vehicles for hauling garbage were probably two-wheeled carts drawn by animals or slaves. For example, in 1400, garbage had piled up so high outside the gates of Paris, France, that it interfered with the city's defenses. In 500 b.c., the Greek city of Athens established the first municipal dump in the Western world when it required that garbage be disposed of at least one mile (1.6 km) from the city walls. As the population of an area grew, so did the need to move the garbage pile further and further away. ![]() The earliest method of getting rid of garbage consisted of simply throwing it in a pile. It's all the same thing, and getting rid of it has been a problem since the beginning of civilization. You can call it garbage, trash, refuse, or solid waste.
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