Jeff Dixon starts work at 4 a.m. and keeps going until the garbage is gone. Dixon, 49, commutes from Jackson to Marietta to begin his workday. He鈥檚 the one driving the Rumpke pickup truck with a hopper on the back, maneuvering through the narrow laneways and alleys, festooned with low-hanging power lines, that bigger trucks can鈥檛 get into.
He might be from Jackson, but he probably knows the intimate byways of Marietta better than many who live here.
He recalls a friend who hired on with Rumpke and had lived in Marietta all his life.聽 鈥淗e told me he saw parts of Marietta he never knew existed,鈥澛燚ixon said.
Tooling slowly down alleys in central Marietta on Tuesday morning as flurries of snow blew past, Dixon was perpetually stopping and starting, getting out of the driver鈥檚 seat at every house, emptying the big brown bins 鈥� sometimes tossing bags out of them, other times using a hydraulic lift to dump the containers 鈥� and then moving down a few feet to the next one. He does each route twice, first picking up recycling, then the ordinary garbage.
A red box in the middle of the alley stopped him between houses.聽 鈥淭he wind got me on that recycling bin,鈥澛爃e said with smile and got out to move it, then drove another few feet to another brown trash can.
Dixon said he鈥檚 been working for Rumpke for 16 years, the past several driving the small truck in Marietta. He had been an over-the-road commercial trucker, but being off in the far parts of the country much of the time kept him away from his family. 鈥淚 started looking for something where I could be home every night,鈥澛爃e said. Rumpke provided that opportunity. When the chance to drive the Marietta route came open, he took it and got to drive the smaller truck.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a lot less demanding, especially getting in and out,鈥漢e said.
He鈥檚 gotten to know his customers. Picking up nearly a dozen paint cans set out behind one house, he said the resident had asked him the week before about getting rid of paint. 鈥淚 told him, dump some cat litter in it and you鈥檙e good to go,鈥澛爃e said.聽鈥淵ou can tell who鈥檚 doing remodeling.鈥�
He can also tell who鈥檚 got kids by what gets thrown away. Others are puzzling until he gets their stories.
鈥淚鈥檝e got one customer who wanted her bin left in one special place, but it looked like it was a farther walk for her to get to it,鈥澛爃e said.聽鈥淭hen I talked to her one day and she explained that her cat uses it as a platform to get into the house.鈥�
The work has its problem-solving side as well. He remembers a woman from Tennessee visiting relatives in Marietta who inadvertently left her debit card in a shopping bag and threw it out with the trash.聽 鈥淚t took us about 15 or 20 minutes, but we found it,鈥澛爃e said.
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