New Waste Connections Garbage Trucks on California's Central Coast!

The Waste Connections yard out of San Luis Obispo has gained popularity over the years the more I have documented it and the most people in the area who visit have an interest to film it as well. Being one of only a handful of Waste Connections fleets in all of California, it is home to some pretty unique trucks, from the iconic all-white Xpeditors bought when the companies in the area were independent to newer batches of trucks in WC colors but still sporting the local subsidiary names. Over the past year, several older trucks in the fleet have been retired or moved to the spare line, allowing for the debut of some pretty interesting new equipment primarily from the Labrie Group. In the course of the past week, I've traveled to multiple locations throughout the county to put together this compilation of the newest trucks out of the yard.

0:00 - Cayucos, CA: 2022 Peterbilt 520 Wittke Starlight/Labrie FL's with Curotto Cans. Here are the two newest front loaders in the yard, not to mention the first combination of its type (that I know of) and the first Curotto Cans in the county. These two trucks are the replacements for the old Xpeditor Carry Cans in Cayucos (seen here:    • Residential Garbage Collection: Missi...  , and here:    • San Luis Garbage/Waste Connections:  ...  ) Talk of new trucks for this town began after I talked to one of the drivers there back in Decemeber 2020. Just over a year later, new trucks finally arrived and they are definitely not what I had expected.
While the drivers get their route done in record time now, the route is not Curotto Can friendly by any means. The Carry Cans worked because of steep hills with cans placed on high slopes, along with nearly half the residents placing out containers in the semi-auto, handle-towards-street fashion. Obviously these are not obstacles that can change overnight, which is why the drivers of the Curottos still have to put up with them. As automated as they want the routes in Cayucos to be, the drivers still have to exit the truck many times per street to move cans out. And as you can see, it's no low entry truck - at least they got the RHD aspect right this time.

5:32 - Los Osos, CA: 2021 Peterbilt 520 McNeilus ZR. Here was the first ZR the yard got back in the summer of last year I believe. While not brand new, it's new enough and one of only one or two others in the yard. This purchase was pretty much a nail in the coffin for Bridgeport, first with the batch of Labrie ASLs in 2019 and then McNeilus in the past year. It's seen here flying through a recycling route on Friday in Los Osos. The ZR seems to work this route pretty well and doesn't seem to slow the driver down too much from the old Bridgeport he used to drive.

8:20 - San Luis Obispo, CA: 2022 CNG Peterbilt 520 Leach Alpha III Rear Loader. Out of the 7 new Alpha III Rear Loaders this yard has, two were ACXs bought in late 2020 and five others on 520s were bought around the same time, a year later in 2021 with this one being the last and only CNG unit. The five 520s replaced the five regular running Volvos from the yard which are all now spares. 1007 is the only truck to do residential trash daily here in SLO. I found them on a pretty nice part of their route on Tuesday so I was able to get some beautiful central coast views in my shots.

12:47 - San Luis Obispo, CA: 2022 Peterbilt 520 Labrie Automizer ASL. Here is the new green waste truck in my neighborhood. I believe this is the yard's newest side loader. Two years later they're still buying these blue Automizers so drivers probably like them a lot. It's also rare that you ever see a spare for one of them which might be another reason why.

I hope you all enjoy this compilation and huge shoutout to all the friendly drivers for letting me film. If anyone is interested in seeing more video of a particular truck, let me know in the comments.

#newtruck #centralcoast #garbage