TALKING TRASH: CITY WORKERS DO THE HEAVY LIFTING

Jerry Jaco has been driving a trash truck for 15 years.

Gary Jones lifts tons of trash into the truck on a daily basis.

When Jerry Jaco talks trash, it's not an insult. It's his job.

Jaco picks up trash for the city of Cape Girardeau. He has been working for the city's solid waste division for 15 years.

Jaco drives a trash truck. He also does his share of heavy lifting too, emptying trash cans into the garbage truck on days when he isn't driving it.

The 50-year-old Jaco said the job keeps him in shape. On the days he works as a loader, he throws as much as eight tons of trash into the truck.

"It pretty well keeps your heart and everything pumping," said Jaco as he drove a garbage truck down a residential street on the city's north side last week.

Jaco still remembers his first day lifting and dumping trash into a garbage truck. "When I went home, I was sore all over."

City crews pick up trash in all kinds of weather and lots of it -- some 7,600 tons a year.

In a typical month, the city's three trash-truck crews haul off more than 500 tons of residential trash over 18 working days, an average of 30 tons a day.

Jaco's partner, Gary Jones, worked through the snow and rain Monday as he loaded trash into the garbage truck.

Jones said he "throws" trash two days and drives the garbage truck the other two days.

In three weeks, he has lost 10 pounds, lifting and dumping countless bags and containers of trash.

"I'm doing this to get in shape," he said.

When he is loading, Jones is constantly on the go -- stepping on and off the metal platform at the rear of the garbage truck, removing the lids from trash containers and dumping bagged and container trash into the truck.

The only time he isn't moving is when he runs the huge blade that crushes and sweeps the trash further inside the truck's trash bin.

The city has four garbage trucks. Three are used regularly. The fourth is used as a backup or when there is a heavier-than-normal load of trash to pick up in the city.

The city collects non-recyclable, residential trash four days a week. Bulky trash, such as appliances, are picked up by other crews on Wednesday.

Recyclable items are picked up by the city's recycling crews.

Each of the city's more than 10,000 households has two trash pickups a week -- once for regular trash and the other for recyclable items such as newspapers and glass.

Jones, who has worked for the city for less than two years, is a "swing man."

He is one of four "swing men" who handle a number of different duties from the recycling operation to filling in for the regular loaders on the trash routes.

Jones has been working on the route with Jaco for the past month, filling in for the regular loader who currently is restricted to light-duty work because of a back injury.

The city's regular trash recycling crews also pick up garbage when necessary.

Such versatility is critical. "We have had as many as six people out sick at one time," said Pam Sander, who supervises trash collection as Cape Girardeau's solid waste coordinator.

In all, the city has 18 employees in its solid waste division. But only six of them work full-time on the regular trash routes.

The garbage trucks carry two-man crews.

The city collects only residential trash. Private haulers handle the commercial trash.

Sander said the industry jokes that the "trash fairy" picks up the garbage while people are at work.

In reality, it's men like Jaco who do the heavy lifting.

Once the trash is picked up, it is dumped at the city's transfer station from which it is compacted and hauled to a regional landfill.

Over the years, residents have mistakenly put everything from their false teeth to jewelry in the trash, Sander said.

Items have been recovered, particularly those that were put out with the recyclable trash.

When the city had its own landfill, people would go through the dumped trash in search of rings and other items they had lost, Sander said.

One woman, obviously upset with her husband, put all of his belongings by the curb. They were hauled off during a Wednesday special pick-up. By the time the husband found out, it was too late, said Sander. The belongings ended up in the landfill.

For Jaco and his fellow trash collectors, the work day begins at 6 a.m.

They work 10-hour days on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. They are off on Wednesday and the weekends.

Jaco said they typically have the trash collected by mid-day or early afternoon at the latest, except on Tuesday.

Instead of the seven to eight tons of trash they may pick up on other days, Jaco and his partner routinely haul off 14 tons of trash.

On Tuesdays, both Jaco and his partner take turns loading and driving the truck.

Jones said it can take them eight hours to collect all the trash on Tuesday.

Each garbage truck only holds seven to eight tons of trash. Jaco and Jones must make two trips to the city's transfer station on Tuesdays.

Once the trash is collected, the crew spends time washing and cleaning the truck so it will be ready for the next day's run.

"This job is not for everybody," Jaco acknowledged.

In the winter, loaders endure freezing temperatures. In the summer, the heat and humidity are a challenge.

Jaco has seen possums, raccoons and rats in trash containers, particularly in the summer time.

"I picked up a bag one day and a squirrel jumped out of it," he recalled.

But he said it is easier to run the trash routes today than it was years ago when the city didn't have a two-container limit per household.

"Back when I started, you took everything," Jaco said.

City crews today also are instructed not to pick up any trash containers or bags that weigh over 75 pounds.

Still, the constant lifting takes its toll. Said Sander, "We have sprains and strains quite often."

But for Jaco and others, it's an excepted risk -- just part of the job of picking up the trash.