A Londoner amazed by the way residential bins are collected in Australia has in turn shocked Aussies who didn’t realise the mundane task was not done the same way in the UK.
The British expat, who goes by JZ, shared a video on TikTok of a rubbish truck collecting bins in a suburban Queensland street.
The truck was using a mechanic arm with a claw to pick up the bins from the kerbside and empty them into the truck before setting them on the ground again.
“Guys, Australia is in the future,” she joked. “Look at that. That makes so much sense.”
JZ said she was amazed as she was used to seeing people do the job manually at home.
Aussies themselves were shocked that it wasn’t a common sight in London.
“This isn’t a thing outside of Australia?!” one comment read with more than 10,000 likes.
Another with more than 20,000 likes said: “Just found out this isn’t standard.”
“Aus[tralia] has had this for over 30 years. It didn’t occur to me the UK still has people doing this by hand,” another wrote.
“It’s crazy now I’m finding out,” JZ agreed.
“Wait, are all bins not emptied like this?” asked another Aussie.
“In the future? We’ve had them for as long as I can remember,” wrote someone else.
Some Sydneysiders explained they also have garbage collectors who manually pick up the bins in narrow city streets.
Americans jumped in to say they too had rubbish trucks with robotic arms.
“We have those in America, I didn’t know they weren’t universal,” one said.
“This is how it is collected all over the US. Kind of shocked it’s not like that in the UK!” another added.
It is understood the world’s first automated residential side loader, where the driver didn’t have to exit the truck and a robotic arm emptied the bins, was introduced in Arizona in 1969.
It was nicknamed Godzilla.
JZ’s video has been viewed more than half a million times in one day.