The Garwood Load Packer was a
refuse collection vehicle built by Garwood Industries in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
,
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
. Engineered by Melvin Donald Silvey, the Packer brought significant changes in the mode and automation of
garbage collection
Waste collection is a part of the process of waste management. It is the transfer of solid waste from the point of use and disposal to the point of treatment or landfill. Waste collection also includes the curbside collection of recyclabl ...
in the United States.
The Garwood Load Packer was one of the first vehicles to utilize a
compactor
A compactor is a machine or mechanism used to reduce the size of material such as waste material or bio mass through compaction. A trash compactor is often used by a home or business to reduce the volume of trash it produces. A baler-wrapper comp ...
, increasing the truck's hauling capacity and reducing the costs of larger payloads. The Packer was introduced in 1938, but significant numbers weren't manufactured until after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. By 1949, over 2500 of these trucks were in use across the US and Canada. Almost all waste
collection vehicles today utilize some type of compaction mechanism.
External links
Garwood Load Packer
Waste collection vehicles
{{truck-stub