Trash vehicle cuts costs, offers comfort.

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A "NEW" VEHICLE AT MONROE COMMUNITY COLLEGE IN Rochester, N.Y., is turning heads. Dubbed the Trash Master, the modified two-door Chevy Cavalier is equipped to collect trash while providing the driver with heat and comfort during inclement weather--and it's saving the institution money:

"The car was a farfetched idea, but it's worked very fine," explains Ron Fess, grounds supervisor.

For nearly 15 years, the facilities team used an open utility vehicle retrofitted to collect trash around the 300-acre campus. But the unconventional use of the vehicle on asphalt, rather than grass, took its toll. "We were changing tires every six to eight weeks and changing axles three times a year," says auto mechanic Paul Pfenninger.

This past year, the team spent a month retrofitting a used sedan donated by a local dealership. They carved an arm-sized hole in the driver's door for easy access to the seven-foot suction hose, cut the car's roofline in half, gutted the back of the car to its subfloor (leaving fenders and rear bumpers intact), and mounted the vacuum unit to a framework on the subfloor.

"There were no blueprints or drawings," explains Pfenninger, who worked on the vehicle with a staff horticulturist. Fess simply shared his vision and the design was .conceptualized and then tweaked.

Facilities staff also manufactured the 50-cubic-foot metal receptacle for the back of the vehicle. It's designed to hold four days' worth of trash, and emptying debris is a breeze: The driver presses a toggle switch in the vehicle to activate a lift system and walks back to open the receptacle door.