Old Refuse Lorries

[Guest Falls]

OK, I'm not that old but I do remember the very old bin lorries that were still around after World War II, when I was growing up.

They had a steel chassis but the body was made of wood. They also had solid rubber tyres, ran on batteries like the milk trucks and the final drive to the back wheels was chain. They only operated in the parts of the city where it was relatively flat. They made a hell of a noise, what with the chain drive and the creaking body.

There was also a van version that went around to all the fish shops to pick up their waste. What a smell when that went by. I'm told Sheffield Transport refused to let poor man who drove it use the buses or trams. He had to walk home from Lumley Street where they had the depot.

Regards

[Guest Gramps]

Can't say I remember those particular lorries, but I do remember the bin men and they certainly earned their money. Most houses at that time had two coal fires going through the winter, - the kitchen range and a fire in the living room. The accumulation of ashes and clinker from these over a week made those bins heavy and they had to be humped a good way from back yards to the lorry and then returned again.

There wasn't much in the way of other rubbish though, - people didn't waste food and packaging was just brown paper bags often used as kindling for the fire.

[dunsbyowl1867]

Can't say I remember those particular lorries, but I do remember the bin men and they certainly earned their money. Most houses at that time had two coal fires going through the winter, - the kitchen range and a fire in the living room. The accumulation of ashes and clinker from these over a week made those bins heavy and they had to be humped a good way from back yards to the lorry and then returned again.

There wasn't much in the way of other rubbish though, - people didn't waste food and packaging was just brown paper bags often used as kindling for the fire.

from Picture Sheffield

[Guest Falls]

from Picture Sheffield

Hello,

Thanks for the photo. Your lorry was far more up-to-date and must have worked in the better parts of town. We never saw anything that good in the Wicker area where I grew up.

Your link however, did prompt me to do a little digging in Pictures Sheffield. In their Road Transport section, is a whole fleet of the refuse lorries with wooden bodies .. Link . The flat-fronted ones I remember most. The photo is dated 1910 but these relics were still running around in the late 1940s.

So also were Tennant's and Duncan Gilmour's steam brewery lorries, but thats another story.

Regards

[Bayleaf]

I can't say I remember the lorries, but I do remember the street cleaners with a two-wheeled horse-drawn cart, and that would be late 40's/early 50's.

[Ponytail]

Refuse Collection

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s12524&pos=84&action=zoom&id=15437

Horse Drawn Dust Cart

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s12526&pos=9&action=zoom&id=15439

[Edmund]

By 1915 the Corker Bottom and Bole Hills tips had gone out of service and the bulk of the city's waste was being processed at Lumley Street (40,000 tons) and Penistone Road (32,000 tons), the remainder being tipped at Renishaw (28,000 tons).  By 1920 the main part of the Lumley Street destructor was obsolete, Renishaw was almost full and the Killamarsh tip project would not be ready in time for use.  Therefore the Council approved a new method of disposal via a new screening plant for all the city's dry refuse, at Bernard Road. Saleable items such as tins, rags and bones were picked off a moving belt, fine dust was used as fertiliser, fine cinder was mixed with a binding agent to be sold as briquettes for household fires, and large cinder was burnt to drive the plant and charge its electric collection vehicles.  The briquettes were only ever in demand during the 1926 coal strike. The plant was in operation until after the second war.

By 1919 the Cleansing Department had 12 electric refuse vehicles and by 1926 the number had increased to 71.

[Athy]

By 1920 standards, it sounds as if they were very organised at Bernard Road.