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“Humans have always thrived with routine,” she told me.

When her daughter was little, Williams Ridge remembered, the weekly arrival of the garbage truck was both dazzling and, in a way, reassuring. When I asked Sheila Williams Ridge, who teaches early-childhood education at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, for any insights she could give me on why kids love garbage trucks so much, she thought of her own daughter, now 21. “They have the original one.”) Other varieties in the United States have automated forks on their front to pick up larger trash receptacles such as Dumpsters, while still others depend on human workers to manually pick up, empty, and replace the garbage cans. The garbage truck I remember watching out our window as a child-big lumbering hulk, single hungry grabber claw-is known in the waste-management industry as an “automated side loader.” (When I excitedly mentioned to Whitney Schlander that the automated side loader was introduced 50 years ago on the streets of Scottsdale, I discovered this was old news to her and Finn: “We went to the trash-transfer facility last year.

Together, we made our way-more aptly, lurched and rumbled our way-toward a unifying theory of why kids are so wild about garbage trucks. So I asked parents, kids, child-development experts, waste-management professionals, and even the creator of a kids’ show about an anthropomorphized garbage truck for their insights. Why generations of kids have been so transfixed by the trash pickup, though, remains something of a mystery.

I, too, had a more-than-passing interest in the garbage truck as a kid with palpable residual excitement, I can remember peeking through the window shutters of my parents’ front room to watch the vaguely menacing robotic arm jut out, snatch our garbage can, and dangle the can upside down over its back while the trash tumbled out. Our drivers will wave back if they see you!”) Meanwhile, the children’s-web-series host Blippi, who has some 6.5 million YouTube subscribers, wrote a life-ruiningly catchy song about garbage trucks (“Some are blue, some are brown, and some are green / And wouldn’t you know it, there are some that can pick up recycling!”) that has been listened to a staggering 31.8 million times as of this writing. (“Wave from your window or doorway, keeping at least 20 feet of safe distance. Some city governments and waste-disposal companies have released safety guidelines for parents whose kids are especially curious about their garbage trucks. The nationwide waste-disposal company Waste Management, for example, sells a branded WM garbage-truck toy on its online shop, and a representative for Waste Management told me that the company frequently receives requests from customers for things such as costumes and party kits for kids. (Ultimately, he was unable to attend, but the party had garbage-truck decorations nonetheless.)įor decades, children have been fascinated by the garbage-collection vehicles that visit their home (as a kid, Finn’s dad wanted to grow up to be a garbage-truck driver himself, according to Finn’s mom), and their widespread fascination has been commemorated in a surprising variety of ways. Finn Schlander, 3, invited the neighborhood garbage-truck driver to his birthday party. Cassidy Sweeting, 4, enlists her mom’s help to deliver granola bars and water bottles to the three trash collectors. Rucker’s daughter Raegan, 3, takes her stuffed animals outside with her to watch the pickup. For Rosanne Sweeting on Grand Bahama island, in the Bahamas, it’s twice a week-Mondays and Thursdays, anytime from 6 to 8:30 a.m.-and for Whitney Schlander in Scottsdale, Arizona, it’s every Tuesday morning at half-past seven.Īt these times, the quiet of the morning is broken by the beep beep beeping of an approaching garbage truck-and broken further when their kids start hollering, begging to be escorted outside to wave or just watch in awe as the truck collects and majestically hauls away the household trash. For Ryan Rucker, a dad in Vacaville, California, the weekly summons comes on Wednesday mornings, usually around seven.