Garbage trucks look pretty indestructible from the outside. Big steel bodies, hydraulic rams, that satisfying crunch as they chew through whatever you leave at the curb. But those compactor blades are essentially applying enormous, sudden pressure to everything inside, and if something in that pile happens to be pressurized itself, physics is going to have some opinions about it.
That’s exactly what happened last Wednesday in Milwaukee, near 9th and Abert Place just south of Capitol Drive, reported WISN 12 News. A city sanitation crew was doing a completely routine collection run when the truck’s packing blade engaged and set off an explosion inside the hopper. One worker was knocked to the ground, suffering an eye injury and a concussion in the process.
The culprit turned out to be oxygen tanks that had been thrown in with regular trash. According to Rick Myers, Sanitation Services Manager for Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works, crews found two tanks that had exploded and two more still intact in the hopper afterward. Four tanks total, riding along in a load of household garbage, waiting for a compactor blade to find them…