Not too long after sunrise on a recent Tuesday morning near Dolores Park, Jamal Lavallier finished his last pickup of the day. He hooked a pair of bins onto his garbage truck, pulled the levers to engage the lift, and then set the bins back down, lining them neatly along the sidewalk.
It was 8:30 a.m. The neighborhood was waking up, but Lavallier was wrapping up his workday. He had been at it since 2 a.m.
The 48-year-old San Francisco native has been a garbage truck driver for more than a decade. As a kid, he said, he always used to come outside and watch the trucks along his street in Bayview. “I didn’t think I was going to be a garbage man, though, back then,” he said. He wanted to be a football player.
He worked as a truck driver for 7Up for 14 years before joining Recology following the advice of some of his friends already in the industry. “Back then, everybody wanted to get in the garbage company,” he said.
Now, he has a shot at national acclaim. Last October, he was nominated for the National Waste and Recycling Association’s “Driver of the Year” award by his employer. The honor, which has been around for 30 years, recognizes drivers with strong safety records and outstanding on-the-job performance, according to the association, which represents the private sector waste and recycling services industry.
Lavallier has now made it to the second round of the selection process. “I didn’t think I was going to get there, it being national,” he said. “I’m kind of excited for it now.”
The winner will receive a $1,000 cash prize and be honored at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. in June. The announcement is expected in March.
Does he think he can win?
“I think I could,” he said.
Over the 13 years he’s worked this job, Lavallier has learned some hard lessons. The biggest, he said, was not to jump out of the truck — something veteran drivers warned him about during training. He did it anyway, until he hurt his knees. That was in 2016, and he hasn’t jumped out since.
He likes the job’s independence. “You’re basically your own boss,” he said. Yes, he has supervisors, but “they kind of leave you alone, as long as you’re running a smooth operation.”
“Nobody’s really bothering you,” he said. “You’re by yourself.”
Unless there’s a mistake, like the time many years ago Lavallier accidentally sent a trash can flying into a parked car. That time, he said, “I had to call the supervisor.”
But that was years ago when he was still a recruit and, nowadays, he runs a much smoother operation. Every night, he drives alone through the Mission and the Castro, and empties about 1,000 bins.
It’s a new route for him, one he only started on about a year ago. Before that, he was on Haight Street for some three years. “I kind of got tired of it, so I wanted to try something different,” he said. He doesn’t have a favorite route yet, but likes the new one because there is a lot to see. “So you’re not going crazy, like it’s not a boring route,” he said.
Though it’s new, he’s already adjusted: He can tell he’s on schedule by looking up and noting the sun: If it’s out, he’s near the end of his shift.
Inside his truck, Lavallier carries a heavy ring with well over a hundred keys — each one for a household that pays extra for drivers to take out the bins from inside the building. Although there are over 500 stops on his route, he remembers by heart the ones that pay for the service.
And he remembers the eateries, too. Lavallier said a perk of the job is becoming something of a breakfast expert. “The thing about garbage men is, we know where all the restaurants and cafés are,” he said.
The lemon ricotta pancakes at Plow on 18th Street are among his favorites. “Nobody,” he said, “can make them like that.”