Hello all, I am here to talk about the garbage trucks. I find that the garbage trucks here are annoying in there frequency and decibel level. In the past half hour I have heard garbage trucks 5 times. and it continues sometimes the pattern goes ambulance garbage truck then ambulance garbage truck at the same time. How does any one get any meaningful work done here with the constant disturbances. The key to intellectual thought is deep pondering and I can’t as so much read a book without being interrupted by these monstrosities. Furthermore I have tinnitus which is a constant ringing in my ear and it aggravates it sometimes. This problem is contributing to the high frequency hearing loss of all people in Taiwan. I propose we half the decibel level of the garbage trucks. As I am writing this I am very high up in a apartment and have my 30 decibel noise cancel construction head phones on and I still hear it clear as day. There is no reason why they need to be as loud as they are. Reduce the speaker volume by 50% the majority of people will still hear it. You may be concerned about older people who maybe have trouble hearing it as to why they make it eerily loud however I say to you we are only perpetuating the problem todays young people are the old people of tomorrow and they will continue to decline in hearing as well from this and thus need higher sirens. In conclusion The garbage trucks are too loud reduce the decibels by 50%. There are schedules too if people listen they will still hear it at that volume. Taiwan has enough noise pollution as it is.A few months ago I was riding a bike and some idiot lit a whole bunch of fire crackers in front of me on the street, was practically deaf for days after that. Hearing loss is insidious because it sneaks up on you and at the current moment we have no available treatment to treat it. It is cumulative loss, take care of you ears people !
As much as I would love to see this implemented, I don’t think it would happen. People seem to be convinced this sound is entirely necessary and there’s no other solution. I kind of understand. In this age, we have no devices that can alert us at a specific time every day. Absolutely nothing has the capability of informing people that a certain time has arrived. The garbage truck chiptune is cutting edge technology and the ONLY possible solution. Cha bu duo.
I actually don’t find them that loud where I am in Taipei. I live on the 5th floor close to a main road maybe 20 seconds walk from where the trucks stop (from the ground floor), and I can just about hear them from inside my apartment if there’s no other noise.
Maybe it depends on the area/route? I don’t think they’ll be changing it though, at least in response to a complaint on Forumosa…
They are loud so everyone knows to bring down their garbage
For a second I thought you wanted to lower the garbage trucks
Like make low riders out of them
I think they should be louder.
with beer and hookers 
Cheers for that, tommy.
I think they’ve damaged your hearing?
If noise bothers you, you may have some problems here.
Yes I think phones would be useful to combat this problem however I agree with you I don’t think it is going to happen. I read some other posts about a similar thing and people were saying how government apps are poorly made and the older generation would not get it. I think the post was 10 years old or something but I’d say it’s a new time and era and people need to use phones here. During the whole covid lock down you could not enter a store without scanning the QR code or writing your info down on a paper. I think the majority of people know how to operate a smartphone. As time goes on perhaps one day they will make the switch. Taiwan is a really beautiful country with all it’s mountains and scenery. It would really make the country more peaceful if the truck chip tune was abolished.
It depends on a lot of factors I suppose some areas I’ve been in have been in the sound has been more faint the others. Over all though I think there is better solutions to the current system.
I was referring to the sound level they produce however I think some of the trucks need a upgrade. In Canada the garbage trucks are superior in the sense that they have a hydraulic picker up in which they put two tongs under a large bin and the bin is picked up over head of the truck and the waste is dumped in. Here I think they manually do it. If they dedicated some of these trucks to buildings which have dedicated garbage disposal areas and created bins for them it would save a lot of time and money.
At least the garbage trucks have certain times, and isn’t going to be playing the music at 3am.
Scooters on the other hand… they’re so loud you could hear it across town, like every 3 scooters in Taiwan is like this.
There should be really harsh fines and confiscation of the scooter for this.
Garbage trucks cannot be on time, literally impossible given the variables as such, what is the option? the high pitch sound is to let people hear from a distance. to gain same distance with bass…dear lord
What are the options? not everyone has a phone, even if they did it wouldnt be practical. many people are busy, they cannot risk standing for an hour because someone before them on the route filled the truck and they had to go back to empty in a traffic jam. and so on. Used to be you could pile it in collection areas, but they ditched that years ago in most areas for obvious reasons.
I think before we shit on the current system, let’s offer some plausible alternatives 
I don’t use the garbage trucks, but are the times that variable? Fur Elise seems pretty regular to me.
The government allegedly has regulations regarding noise yet we all have been regaled with the 8am concertino of jackhammering. In theory barely legal yet there it is.
These days we will also have illegal crackers and assorted fireworks going off at late hours in the night. Illegal yet there they are.
As it has been explained to us before, the current garbage truck system where either you come out and throw the stuff in or the building 's cleaning lady does if for you is “the most efficient” as it keeps trash off the streets and rats/roaches from taking over the town. No one has even considered the noise pollution unless we are talking about the English lessons through the same speakers that announce the truck is coming.
I’ve never seen this.
Come over to my house on Wednesdays. That kind of two prong lifter system lifts and empties our trash and another comes by and does the recycling which they then throw into the river or something.
Yes, but also no. But basically yes. As an example.
pretend a 10 meter tape measure represents 10km of roads the truck has to do each day. it is certainly more than that most places, but for easy visual.
imagine every mm of that tape measure is a house. Probably more like 10 houses in densely populated areas. Now assume they have a 1~3 bags per household per day assumption. They set their schedule based on those types of averages. let’s use a pin head for each house, or every mm. but sometimes houses have huge amounts of garbage. moving house, cleaning out, bought new furniture or whatever. now the pin head is more like a thumbtack. the truck gets full faster. This becomes a bigger issuethe further downthe line you get. Hence sometimes the garbage folks getting pissy. Nevermind them needing to explain to people this cant be dumped, recycle, go through the bag of entitled grandma and so on. it really adds up to delays.
Basically, the people near the beginning of the route never experience a full truck or delayed service and they complain about noise. the people at the end of the day get all the prior delays compounded (nevermind traffic or other incidentals) and get pissed off because they are waiting for an hour and messing up their schedules. This of course varies place to place as well. quite a lot. So, for better or for worse, a public alarm system is implemented to let people know. they can put out their bags out "at 4 o’clock " then go back to guard their shop, watch their kids or whatever. when they hear the alarm coming they can run out, throw in and get back to work.
Honestly, given how densely packed and busy Taiwan is, I dont see a better sollution. but I am very interested to hear ideas, as probably everyone is
Let’s not forget service here is either free or dirt cheap. And most places have daily service 5 or 6 days a week. Unlimited dumping… Where I grew up in Canada we paid out the ass per whatever sized trash can and they came once every 2 weeks. My family in the city got weekly service. Most households we knew paid for 1 or 2 trash cans. It was pretty bad.
I think that’s a big city thing, hard to maneuver trucks in traffic to get every small can. Also why dumpsters are more efficient. If I remember correctly you are from Toronto right? I wouldnt expect that there, vancouver etc. But the prong and auto lift was the norm where I grew up outside of the cities. except in more remote areas where it was smaller trucks and guys dumping by hand. It’s just really fast and less liability for union workers haha.
Maybe not universal in Canada but in some areas. Usually in most neighbourhoods i’ve seen they use the tongs. Even for personal bins and not just the industrial ones.