LOS ANGELES DEPT. OF SANITATION 1950s TRASH COLLECTION FILM INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER 15414
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- čas přidán 26. 09. 2019
- This late 1950s film from Parthenon Pictures, presented by International Harvester, documents the city of Los Angeles’ banning of backyard trash incinerators and its transition to a municipal garbage collection system in 1957. The film opens with a shot of LA from a distance. A public works administrator from a midwestern city, Don Flemming, observes the operations of LA’s Toyon Canyon landfill. There are several good shots of LA. Cars crowd the freeways in LA (02:15), and the rapid growth of the city creates urban sprawl. An inversion covers the valley. The film shows the sources of the pollution (03:12): factories, refineries, and the burning of refuse. A municipal incinerator burns rubbish. A woman burns garbage in a backyard incinerator (04:26). The film shows other backyard and rooftop incinerators. A fireman sprays water from a firehose onto a house fire (05:12). A garbage truck drives around and collects garbage. The film shows City Hall (06:49). Inside, an official looks at a map of Los Angeles and ponders how to deal with waste collection. The City Council watches an informational film, Collection Equipment (07:40), showing eight different types of garbage trucks as they consider launching a municipal waste collection system. City Hall is lit up at night (09:44). The film introduces the key men involved in starting the waste management system (09:54): Warren Snyder, Norman Hume, Grant Flynn, Jack Kirkus, Ray Swinson, George Bulgart, and Charlie Neese (please excuse any misspellings of the names). A man instructs newly recruited garbage men on operations (11:11); the men learn how to operate and maintain the garbage trucks. Footage shows the garbage trucks being tested at the proving grounds of the manufacturing company (11:50), presumably that of Harvester International. Contractors wait in City Hall to bid on the jobs for the waste system components-in this case for truck chassis (12:55). There is a night shot of City Hall and its surrounding neighborhood (14:31). Men wipe down garbage trucks (14:50), and then the district foreman waves the garbage trucks off and out onto their routes during the first day of operations, where they clear the south-central district. A loader dumps garbage from household containers into the truck (15:55). Trucks pass large piles of garbage. One truck uses its compactor to crush the garbage. An official drives a car down a residential street to check on garbage collection (18:25); he calls the office from the car on what looks like a phone receiver. Trucks arrive back at the yard (19:52) to check in. Inside the office, drivers go over what routes have been cleared and what remains. A truck dumps rubbish at a municipal incinerator (20:58). Garbage men park the trucks in the yard at the end of the day (22:27). The men look at the map of the other districts to service over the next few days. A truck drives a route up in the Hollywood Hills (24:27). City officials look at a site for a new disposal facility for the San Fernando Valley (24:55). A garbage man picks up garbage in the rain (25:55). There is a shot of Toyon Canyon where the new landfill is being built and garbage is dumped (26:58). At the landfill, heavy tractors move the trash, and a Harvester International TD-24 pulls a scrapper to spread dirt over the garbage layers. A tractor bulldozes dirt over the landfill. There are shots of a man golfing, people playing tennis, and the city officials leaving the landfill at Toyon Canyon. The film concludes with scenes of LA with clear skies, an American Airlines plane taxiing on a runway, and a shot of LA from the window of the plane.
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I was a kid when all this was happening in LA. My grandma in North Hollywood burned her trash daily in her incinerator until 1956. I remember sering those shiny new IH COEs with the Leach bodies that put the incinerators out of work. I used to light the incinerator for her. Did the smog get better? Nooo... the cars of the '50s and early '69s just made it worse! Now, 60 years later, tge air in LA is squeaky clean compared to 1956, thanks to this project and the tightest emission standards in the country.
I didn't realise LA had smogs in the 1950s, I thought it was only us in smoggy London that had the problem I visited LA in 1972 and the smog from car exhausts was very bad then. Great to see the whole operation carried out by City officials and employees. Not like today when everything is outsourced to private companies who are more interested in maximising profits than giving a good service!
My parents lived in the San Fernando Valley at the time, maternal grandparents had been in Glendale for years, great grandmother had a florist shop in Montrose in the 1920s.
I grew up in Van Nuys in the 1960s - 70s and recall several of the old incinerators in neighbor's back yards; in disuse or used as BBQs. The area was built up in 1947-49 and builders had offered incinerators as 'cost options' with the suburban homes.
From what I understand, the word 'smog' was coined in London referring to the deadly coal dust of a century ago.
not the sound and editing issues notwithstanding, this is a real great video/film that provides some good memories to(some) people who lived in the 60's/70's remembering the garbage men/truck cruising down their street/neighborhood. i clearly remember that time back in those days when i watched them as a little kid then in my neighborhood-great video, loved it!
Still the same, just different trucks. Great film!
one step closer to Soylent green even in the 1950,s.
Made me think of Scatman Crothers singing, "Stick out yo can cuz here comes the garbage man..."
Scatmans world
Love the employee calling his boss from a phone booth!
That's how we all did it back til the '90s.
Originally released in 1958. At the time, Jack Meakin was the musical director on Groucho's "YOU BET YOUR LIFE".
Boy, I think this film takes first prize for splices per inch! Wow! Any idea of the history of this print? Library or classroom film copy?
Agreed. This print is probably about half the length of the original film!
Extra Clip" tastic"
outstanding!
What a nightmare! Did you see those trash cans? Boy, people were stupid then as they are stupid today. No?
Thanks!
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Any chance of tracking down the Collection and Equipment reel they were watching in the film?
14:30 - Notice the Los Angeles 'skyline'.
By city code, no buildings were permitted to be taller than City Hall.
Keep pushing....
Epic ...
Those trucks were still in use in the 1960s.
19:45 Vintage drum cart
This film was originally an hour long, but because of the thousands of splices it has since undergone, it's presented to you now in its "streamlined" form.
So wait so are smudge pots used BOTH for trash incineration and heating orchards to ward off frost?
Backyard incinerators were very popular in the Los Angeles area.
Post WW2 suburban tract homes offered them as 'cost options' and they had existed for decades prior.
Let’s face it. A lot of propaganda. Things got worse and worse into the 60s and 70s, the decade in which I lived in Los Angeles. The air was filthy. I lived in West Hollywood and most of the time I didn’t even remember that the Hollywood Hills existed. You couldn’t see them to save your life, Then after a good rain or a windy day suddenly the hills appeared with Crystal clarity. You could even see the San Gabriel mountains! Since then decade after decade, things have improved in my last trip back, I was amazed at how clean things appeared. Let’s hope it stays that way.
I recall our place in san pedro still had a brick incinerator built in the back wall..grandparents places did to..here's another fun fact most of los angeles area had local trash hauling with a few trucks that had territories that spanned a few square miles until the Armenians started to "encourage" small operators to sell and work for them..if not sometimes they woke up to their trucks burned out ...
I like the vehicles .
Smog unburned hydrocarbons, all those vehicle with there Blowby tubes dumping all that crankcase gases right out to the atmosphere. Good times .
And 60 years later it's still filthy. Never planning forward, always playing catch up from the "behind".
I was born there in '55..the difference from as late as the mid 70s till now is like day and night for air pollution..I'll bet you never lived there
You never lived there. If you did, you'd know better. Air in LA now is pristine compared to the '50s-'80s. Incinerators were only part of the problem. The worst culprit was/is cars.
Yep, that was the landfill back then. No liner, just household garbage spread in kindly geological layers. Imagine mining that trash.
Because one day your ancestors may well have to do it for survival😢
Audio skips frequently.
Methane.
Splicing woes make this unwatchable.
Tell me this isn't a little racist,all the black drivers but only one white guy drives.
Management was all rather pale.