Blacktown Garbage

Out in Sydney’s west we are seeing one of the young side loaders run by Blacktown City Council, which operates its own in-house fleet for weekly garbage collections. In recent years the council has been building up a fleet of low entry trucks, consisting of Bucher and Superior Pak bodies, Dennis Elite and Merc Econic cabs. Instead of having them all plain white and just sporting the Blacktown logo, the council has gone down a more exciting path, doing the machinery up in a number of different colours to represent a variety of community organisations and campaigns. In future I would like to produce a big video showing off the range of colours/themes in the latest Blacktown fleet, given it’s something out of the ordinary for such a large group of garbage trucks. Featured here is one of the trucks put to work in 2018, painted up entirely in purple, being one of the SPAK/Dennis units in the fleet. I shot this video of #611 not too long ago on a Tuesday, knocking over the weekly job in the suburb of Blacktown itself, working swiftly in the early hours under the cover of darkness.

[@jestronixhanderson9898]

Nice speedy pickup, this guys got it down pat. Nice camera work too.

[@wagarbo9874]

Cool video!

[@laurin4339]

Great work. I now get the idea where URM got the idea with the different colored trucks. I think the purple looks really good, the operator also kept it entertaining for a normal Dennis Sp4 with his smooth operation style. Even though i like the color, like i’ve said in the Penrith Recycling video, i’m not a big fan of the side livery, not that i have something against these campaigns but something about waste would be far more fitting. Blacktown always had cool trucks, first the sidepaks, then the Hinos and now these different colored Spaks. Any idea what recent buys they made, you wrote that they used Econics, just on RLs or SLs too? By the way, do you have a video of the Manco, would be cool to see as they are somewhat rare. I heard Auburn wanted to buy one but in the end didn’t, so Blacktown is the only city i know of that has a Manco. I see a lot potential in the Manco, i just think it’s currently overshadowed by the big counterparts like the Gen6 and SP5. I mean the American version of the Manco is very popular there, so i don’t see why the Manco couldn’t be popular in Australia.

[@AussieGarbo]

That's it mate, Blacktown was the first council to bring out these coloured trucks, in fact I understand they're probably first in the country to introduce a coloured fleet, and a damn big fleet at that! Yes agreed again, waste related livery would be more fitting on the garbage trucks, but it seems a lot of councils out there have gone completely away from that concept. I must say but, even without garbage themes, the variety of colours they've used have sort of won me over here, really gives the equipment lots of character. So all new side loaders are SPAK Dennis, with the exception of the 6 Bucher bodies they got earlier on, and the new clean-up rear loaders will be SPAK Econics… I'm a bit unsure why they've gone with two different low entry models. Another group of trucks is currently on order which will leave very few of the original white trucks remaining. I don't currently have a video of a Manco from there, I was very close to achieving this, however that day the driver wasn't ok with the videos, but hopefully I'll make it back again before they go and get what I want. In Tasmania a company called Jones Waste Management had a 6x4 Hino done up in the blue/yellow Wanless scheme (got bought out from memory), I'm pretty sure it worked in the Launceston contract - it would've been a neat truck to get on video! Unfortunately, it seems like a product that just didn't succeed, overshadowed like you said, would've been cool to see more of them pop up for some variety.

[@Ivecofan21]

I’ll give you a comment worth replying to now mate.
Nice work on this one, there’s something about watching a lone garbage truck servicing bins along main roads in the cover of darkness to be enjoyable. Get in and out whilst there’s no one about, how it should be done
Drivers operating style looks very professional and somewhat familiar, almost like I’ve seen it before...