13 Garbage Men Reveal The Craziest Things They’ve Come Across On The Job

You know that really embarrassing thing you threw in the trash so no one would see it? Guess what? Someone saw it!

A Reddit thread asked garbage men to share the craziest and most absurd thing they’ve ever discovered on the job. Here are some of the most unbelievable items they’ve come across.

A Cold Shower

One time a dumpster behind a residential motel was filed with gallon jugs of urine. The undocumented extended family in one room were peeing in the jugs so that nobody would guess how many people were living in the room. I typed the box, pulled the lever and got a horrible cold urine shower when the bottles popped. Yes, I went home early.

Body Parts

I work for a biohazard company. One time I went to pick up waste from a hospital and there was a 2 week old leg sticking out of a container.

Toilets Bombs

Toilets are fun to pick up! I was a driver, but every time there was a toilet in the trash I would run back just to smash it. We pulled up to a house that had a toilet out once. My loader, Wayne, got off the back of the truck and picked up the bags.

I leapt out of the cab, ran back saying, “Potty, potty, potty, potty!” grabbed the toilet, lifted it over my head, and whipped it into the truck. It exploded with a satisfying boom, and I ran back up and leapt back into the cab.

Collectibles

My dad found a huge box of really old matchbox cars in the rubbish once, we got them appraised and they are worth about £3000-£5000 (over $4,000) all together.

Pet Parts

A bag of dog heads. And no, that is not a metaphor.

Parts Of Other Animals

I was a driver for a large company with green trucks. People will throw ANYTHING away. Skinned sheep heads. Gigantic, soiled sex toys. Deer stomachs. One house had 15 bags of nearly-new, designer clothes in the trash each week for almost a month. Move-out piles were the worst. People would toss out what seemed like the entire contents of the house, and it would take us 15 minutes to load the truck, then we would fill up early and have to run to the landfill, and it would screw the whole day.

Unused Condoms And Then…

I’m a groundskeeper. One morning while making my rounds for litter clean-up, I found a full, un-opened box of condoms thrown away in the bushes outside the unit where a teenage girl lived. I thought it was maybe just a coincidence. Maybe some passerby threw it in there.
Then two weeks later, in the same bushes, I found a used pregnancy test. I laughed pretty hard.

Cancer

Not a garbage man, but I used to remove hazardous waste from a large hospital. One day I got called into the OR because some tech had thrown away a gallbladder that needed to be tested for cancer. We called the dumpster company and they came to open it, I then spent the next 3 hours or so going through the dumpster searching for a cancer ridden gallbladder.

Used Toilet Paper

I’m a former Garbage man. The worst is used Toilet paper. Nothing worse than having a bag break and spew out mounds of used toilet paper like some type of unrighteous pinata. Honestly the most disgusting thing I ever saw though, was a co-worker who regularly ate/drank things we found in the trash.

Even More Collectables

It’s not just bad stuff. I’ve found some good stuff, too. An entire box of brand-new, embossed metal Rolling Rock Beer signs that I sold on EBay for $400. Found an unopened box of copper tubing. My loader found two 1920’s baseball cards worth several thousand dollars.

More of a Dog Person

Some sicko had a trashcan filled with rotting dead cats. The smell is unforgettable.

Snacks

I did trash cleanup at a park. One day I was waiting for this group at a pavilion to leave so I could start the cleanup.
I drive around and there’s 2 people left. As I’m walking up the guy hails me, says “Hey there’s still a bunch of leftovers here, you want anything?” We’re told not to accept food handouts from customers, so I passed. Figure if they’re still eating I should probably come back a little later still.

As I’m driving off I see the guy lift up the trash can lid and grab something out of the bin to put on his plate. They weren’t actually part of the party, just some random people that offered me food from a garbage can.

Who Dat?

I once found a taxidermied dead raccoon dressed in a baby/toddler t-shirt along with a taxidermied alligator. Things you’ll see in New Orleans.

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