Watch out for the guy on the loader

We ripped down all of the walls from Abigail’s room and loaded it into boxes.  We just got “medium” boxes from a store and they weighed, when full, around 80 pounds each.  Emily and I hauled them down the steps to the trailer.  One day last week, I hitched up the trailer and headed to the dump.  I have never been to a landfill before.  When we lived in TN, our county had a really cool place we called the dump.  In actuality, it was a bunch of big dumpsters where the county would accept trash, metal, plastics, etc…pretty much everything.  It was open every day and was super convenient.  It was a dump I guess but not a true landfill.

At the landfill At the landfill

So, here in WV, my county does not have a TN style dump so I had to take the boxes to our proper landfill.  I don’t know if you have ever taken stuff to a landfill, but it was an adventure!  I pulled onto scales where the nice lady took down my information and my weight.  She then told me to “follow the dust and stay out of the way of the guy on the loader.”  I get that it is a large piece of equipment, but it made me wonder if the guy on the loader was stable.

At the landfill At the landfill

Anyhow, I followed the dust awhile and sure enough, I could see a huge loader driving back and forth over a huge pile of junk and trash.  Truck after truck was lined up.  They whipped around and backed up to the pile, somehow missing the guy on the loader.  Some unloaded stuff by hand, while others in the big trucks dumped and ran.  Not having a dump trailer, I had to back into my spot and unload by hand.  As you might guess, the smell was…bad…very bad.  Bits of stuff were blowing around.  Crows were picking over who-knows-what.  It was dusty and I always had to keep an eye out for the guy on the loader.

At the landfill
Watch out! It’s the loader!

Once I had it all unloaded, I had to drive my way back out through the huge ruts and blowing junk.  Getting out was harder as there was no dust to follow.  There was still plenty of dust but it wasn’t the following kind of dust.  Anyhow, I finally made it back out and drove back up onto the scales.  My load ended up weighing 820 pounds which cost me around $16.  That seemed like a pretty good deal.  I had another same-sized load I took another day so my house certainly groaned with relief.  One little room shed 1600 or so pounds of weight.  I guess the guy on the loader was probably happy to see more junk to push around too, so all in all, it was a pretty cool experience.  My nose will never be the same and I permanently coated my lungs with pulverized nasty blowing around the landfill.  Who knows, maybe the guy on the loader was trying to find his way out and was just following the wrong dust!

4 thoughts on “Watch out for the guy on the loader

  1. Well maybe the guy driving the giant trash compactor really likes his job. (I used to like driving the loader at work and it was something I really got good at.) Can you imagine how he smells and looks at the end of the day !!! I’ll bet that dust gets on every part of him even through his clothing. Carrying all of those boxes downstairs must have been a real chore. I think I would have laid some planks over the stairs and slid the boxes down. But then again, I’m just old and lazy.

  2. Did you go to the one in Hurricane? If you did you probably had to wash your truck when you got out! Last time we went up there our truck got very muddy! They also made my husband wear an orange vest when he was tossing the stuff off the back of our trailer! lol I guess it was so the guy on the loader could see him! 🙂 I always worry about getting a nail in my tires!

  3. I used to go to the dump all the time since we lived in the country and that was the only way to dispose of our trash. But over the last decade, they have really cracked down on what you can throw away at the dump. Now we have to back up to huge metal containers set into a slope with built in compactors. You throw your stuff down into them, press the button to compact it to the far end and drive off. They even make you separate it a bit into woods, metals, and misc. I suspect though if I had shown up in a large rental truck full of plaster, they might have let me go to the landfill myself.

    Back in the day, I always enjoyed those trips because while my parents were unloading the pickup, my brother and I got to hunt for ‘treasures’ which we took home! It always amazed me what people threw away.

  4. I have never been to a dump, I don’t think my nose could take it!! That was a small price to pay to get rid of so much junk!!!

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