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Ronald Work, a driver with Waste Management  for 28 years,  received a Driver of the Year Award from the National Waste & Recycling Association. He averages 3,809 pickups per week and is accident free.
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This driver of almost three decades is on top of the (garbage) heap

Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette

This driver of almost three decades is on top of the (garbage) heap

Here comes Ronald Work, steering his truck into the parking lot behind a Rite Aid drugstore in Ambridge. He pulls up to a pair of dumpsters inside a chain-link fence, unbuckles his seatbelt and lowers himself to the ground. He unlocks the fence, gets back in the truck and buckles up.

Down comes a crossbar from over the truck. A fork with two prongs also lowers, and Mr. Work glides the prongs into the fork pockets on each side of the dumpster. He pushes a button and the dumpster raises, creating a shadow that darkens the cab.

When the dumpster hovers over the back of the truck, it turns over. Boom. Boom. The trash jangles as it lands. After Mr. Work shakes the dumpster around via his control shift, loosening any danglers, he brings it back to the ground.

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“Everything you pull into, you have to back away from,” he says, so he backs away as liquid muck drips from the sides and back of the truck. The average garbage truck is 14 feet high, 30 feet long and able to carry up to about 10 tons of waste.

Mr. Work was honored by the National Waste & Recycling Association this month because he’s been very careful moving his big vehicle in and around his routes. The 56-year-old has worked at Waste Management for 28 years, logging 3,809 pickups and 718 miles on his route each week. For almost three decades, Mr. Work has picked up the trash, accident free.

“It kind of felt good,” he says of getting the award. “But I don’t do anything more than everybody else does every day,” he added, turning into a narrow driveway with ease.

Mr. Work was honored with a Driver of the Year Award at a ceremony in Las Vegas, where he was also given a plaque. He’s one of an estimated 136,000 garbage truck drivers nationwide. 

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2 a.m. to 2 p.m.

By the time he was 12, he began spending summers in a garbage truck, helping his father — a driver — haul trash in Sewickley. He formally became a garbage truck driver at 16, 40 years ago. Back then, “It was easy to get into this business,” he said. “Nobody wanted to be a garbage man.”

He works his frontloader from 2 a.m. to 2 p.m. five days a week, 48 weeks a year. Most days he makes a couple of hundred pickups before dumping his load at a landfill. There he’ll weigh in at a scale, back into a spot and flip a switch to open the tailgate. Out comes the trash.

Then he’ll go back out for a couple of hundred more pickups. He works alone. 

Among his stops: That Rite Aid, a Wendy’s and apartment complexes. On this day, a hot Tuesday morning in June, Mr. Work looked back on the career he’s made out of taking care of the trash.

“I didn’t think I’d be working here that long,” he says. “Man, it’s nice ... it’s not a bad place to work, not a bad job.

“A job is what you make it. If you want it to be hard, it’s going to be hard.”

Down a brick road he goes, the truck jiggling. Before every turn, he scans the area in anticipation of seeing anything from kids, balls and bicycles to other cars in the road. A pair of helmets rest on the dashboard and rattle with every stop. At red lights, the truck vibrates and the sideview mirrors shake. A constant hum echoes.

Too smelly for a ticket

The truck emits a terrible stench. Even for somebody who’s around it 60 hours a week, “It’s pretty bad in the summertime.” Which is part of why he keeps his window open for fresh air, to ease the power of the unforgiving reek.

One day Mr. Work was pulled over by a police officer for having a headlight out. When the officer approached the truck, he swatted and let Mr. Work go because the smell was unbearable.

Now Mr. Work turns down a narrow alleyway, where there are only a few inches between tire and curb on either side.

He passes a dumpster on his right, then backs up to get a good angle for pickup. He drives right up to the dumpster, makes his pickup and backs up again. As he turns away, he manages not to scrape a building or car. In fact, he also manages to avoid the curbs.

At another stop, he rumbles past the side of a restaurant. He waves to an employee sitting outside for a smoke. When she sees the big truck, she smiles as if to say, “You’re coming down this tight path?” He cruises in and out within a minute or two.

He’s worked in hail, snow and rain. He once decided to work during a blizzard in the 1990s so he could receive overtime pay. A state of emergency was issued but there was Mr. Work, out picking up the trash behind shopping centers, where the snow was two feet deep.

“I was a lot younger,” he says. “It was fun. It ain’t no fun sliding down the road no more.”

The other drivers on the road

He tells the new drivers that he trains to stay focused, for many car drivers don’t pay enough attention to their own safety. “If I’m backing up, they’ll drive right behind me,” he says. “They have no concern.”

Mr. Work approaches yet another dumpster, lowers the fork and begins to raise the bin. He spots a hanging telephone wire, so he backs up before raising the dumpster clear of the wire. 

Despite piloting the same route over and over in the Ambridge area, he doesn’t mind the repetition that comes with the job.

“Yeah,” he says, acknowledging the monotony. “I like it that way.”

It’s almost noon, which means he’ll make more pickups for an hour or so then head to the Waste Management transfer station in Ambridge to dump his load. He steers into an apartment complex parking lot, where a few kids are playing with chalk. They smile and wave. Mr. Work honks to say hello.

Next he approaches two dumpsters filled to the brim behind Hank’s Frozen Custard in New Brighton. This one is a big load, even by his standards. “This place is doing a heck of a business this summer,” he says. It takes more packing than usual, about 40 seconds.

On his way back to the road, a few young kids sit outside eating custard. They wave goodbye to him, as if mourning a lost balloon. Then Mr. Work drives away from the parking lot, off to a new series of pickups.

Matthew Gutierrez: mgutierrez@post-gazette.com or 412-263-3852.

First Published: June 30, 2016, 4:00 a.m.

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Ronald Work, a driver with Waste Management for 28 years, received a Driver of the Year Award from the National Waste & Recycling Association. He averages 3,809 pickups per week and is accident free.  (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)
Ronald Work hops into his cab of his truck. Mr. Work, a driver with Waste Management for 28 years, received a Driver of the Year Award from the National Waste & Recycling Association. He averages 3,809 pickups per week and is accident free.  (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)
Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette
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