BACK TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS IN WASTE MANAGEMENT

by N. J. Johnston
Trotting at a goodly pace through downtown Bristol, Vermont, on a Tuesday morning, Cathy Palmer is keeping up with rush hour traffic, despite the fact that her team of Percheron mares, Daisy and Debby, are pulling a 2,400 pound specially-designed garbage wagon behind them with two men standing poised on the running boards. The noise is deafening, and not just the noise of eight steel-shod hooves striking asphalt, harness jangling, and wagon hardware banging. There was a load of gravel in a dump truck gearing down behind Cathy, and a school bus loaded with grade school children shifting up to second gear in the opposite lane.

"We've had some complaints about doing pickup on Main Street at this time of day," said Pat Palmer, "but that's exactly what the city wants us to do, so we pretty much do it on the run." The runners are Pat and his nephew Andre. They dash to the sidewalk and grab black plastic bags, sling them into the landfill section of the wagon, and jump back on board. They sprint ahead of the team of horses and grab plastic containers of recycleables, sorting them on the fly into bins strapped to the wagon for cans, plastics (colored and clear), and paper.

Then comes the most dangerous part of the trip. Cathy directs the team down a steep dirt road, where only a couple houses stand, each with neatly tied black plastic bags in a row, and up again, for a turn around back onto Main Street. There is a curve and cars hurrying to work from both directions, but Andre steps boldly out into traffic and waves his arms. It is suddenly quiet.

From a standing start, Cathy accelerates the team on through and out of harm's way. "We don't want to cause any road rage," Pat says with a grin.

Three years ago, Pat Palmer won in the bidding for Bristol's garbage collection contract. To his credit, Pat has never thought of this business as a quaint, New England kind of thing. It is just good business and a matter of using a technology in proper scale to the job that needs doing.

Once a week, on Tuesday mornings, Pat and Cathy and their one employee, Andre, load up the team of horses and drive six miles from their farm in New Haven to the landfill on the outskirts of Bristol. With the team and wagon, the Palmers pick up the garbage, making three circuits through town, for a total of 16 miles of driving, and are done work by 1:00 pm.

"It's not about speed," said Pat, shouting because the team is trotting   "...article continues..."