Arkansas cities add trash-truck cameras to aid speed, safety

This picture is from the city of Walnut Ridge’s video system that monitors its garbage truck route and driver. Four cameras shoot pictures and video of the truck’s inside, the arm used to pick up trash cans and the front and rear views from the truck.
This picture is from the city of Walnut Ridge’s video system that monitors its garbage truck route and driver. Four cameras shoot pictures and video of the truck’s inside, the arm used to pick up trash cans and the front and rear views from the truck.

WALNUT RIDGE — The steel claw extended from Donnie Milgram’s garbage truck, grabbed a gray trash can and hoisted it over the Mack truck during his route in Walnut Ridge.

The trash dumped into the back of the truck, and the arm gently returned the can to the side of the road.

Instead of watching out the window to ensure the arm worked properly, though, Milgram watched its progress on a small screen mounted on the truck’s dashboard. The Walnut Ridge Sanitation Department installed four cameras in its truck to monitor its drivers and collection routes.

“Pretty neat,” Milgram, who has worked for the sanitation department for 40 years, said Thursday of the system. “It makes this job easier and safer.”

The city bought the garbage truck, 2,500 wheeled trash cans and the camera system in April for about $162,500, Walnut Ridge City Clerk Sharon Henson said.

Milgram began using the new truck in July.

Other Arkansas cities use the camera system. In northeast Arkansas, both Jonesboro and Paragould have cameras in their garbage trucks.

Walnut Ridge, with its population of 5,380, is one of the smallest Arkansas cities to have cameras in its truck, Mayor Charles Snapp said.

“It’s a heck of a system,” Snapp said of Third Eye Cam, a Katy, Texas-based company that installed the cameras in Walnut Ridge’s garbage truck. “It’s helping us. By upgrading our system, we have lowered the risk of employee injury … and residential neighborhoods look cleaner.”

Four cameras are mounted on the truck. One shows the arm used to pick up the cans. Another shows trash being dumped in the truck’s bin, and two other cameras record the front and rear views from the truck.

A fifth camera snaps pictures of the driver and the truck’s cab. The truck is also equipped with a GPS device that shows workers in City Hall where the truck is at all times.

Milgram can take pictures of residences where trash cans are not left at the curbside to prove he didn’t skip stopping at the homes.

When the new system first went into effect, assistant to the mayor Christy Vaccari-Robinson said she received numerous calls from residents who complained Milgram didn’t pick up their trash. Robinson checked a program on her computer that records each picture Mil-gram shot and saw, in most cases, the trash cans were not at the curb when Milgram drove by.

The calls lessened after a few weeks, she said.

“People got used to it,” Vaccari-Robinson said.

Snapp said the cameras have shortened collection times. Milgram is usually done with his daily routes by noon, and the city now collects trash four days a week rather than five.

In the past, two workers rode the back of the truck, getting off at each stop to heft cans into the back.

The other workers did not lose their jobs when the cameras were installed, but instead work for the city’s street department where more employees were needed, Snapp said.

Earlier this spring, one sanitation department employee fell off the back of the truck and shattered his foot, sanitation department supervisor Shannon Fisher said. The employee can no longer work on the truck and is on workers’ compensation now, he said.

With the cameras in place, no one is needed on the back of the truck.

The city also now requires residents to place their trash in the large, plastic wheeled carts. In the past, Fisher said, residents put refuse in cardboard boxes. When it rained, the boxes would fall apart and workers would have to pick up the trash, slowing down collection times.

“This has made a world of difference,” Fisher said. “Our town is much cleaner now.”

The cameras also have helped monitor code violations. If Milgram sees an unkempt yard or debris left on the side of the road, he snaps a picture.

Snapp said pictures also were used to prove that some businesses were using trash cans but not paying for the service. During previous mayoral administrations, Snapp said, some nonresidential businesses were provided with free trash collection service. He said out-of-town residents who owned rental property in Walnut Ridge often threw their trash away at the in-town properties.

“This has allowed us to balance the sanitation rates, not to mention that area residents’ monthly collection rates are no longer subsidizing a limited number of residential business operations,” Snapp said.

The system also monitors the truck’s speed and if the driver is wearing a seat belt when the truck is moving.

“It’s offering us the opportunity to establish training and help our drivers become safer operators,” Snapp said. “By working smarter and using technology, Walnut Ridge should be in position to maintain our current residential trash rates for years to come.”

Not all sanitation workers who use the camera system are pleased with it, though. In Tampa, Fla., trash collection union officials want to remove the cameras, saying it hinders drivers who are more concerned about being recorded than doing their jobs.

So far, Snapp said, no one has complained about the camera system in his town.

“It’s keeping us safe and saving money,” the mayor said. “If you make more improvements that keep giving back to the city, you’re doing your job.”

Upcoming Events