Rudy Wien, 3, was excited to get inside the truck with Carlos DeSantiago on Dec. 8. Rudy Wien’s love of garbage trucks has blossomed into a wonderful friendship with DeSantiago, his family’s neighborhood trash collector. (Cliff Grasmick/Staff Photographer)
At 3-and-a-half years old, Rudy Wien adores garbage trucks. Rudy’s parents aren’t completely sure why, but they know it started with trash.
“He likes sorting things,” explained Rudy’s mom Ellory Wien. “So it started with sorting things that typically went to our trash cans, and then dumping all of the little trash cans into the bigger trash can. And then when he realized there was a truck that picked up all that trash, that was very, very exciting to him.”
Trash collection day became an opportunity for Rudy to see the process in action. In the Wiens’ neighborhood near the Boulder Reservoir, Tuesdays mean Rudy is outside watching with awe as the claw grabs the bins and unloads them into the massive truck driven by Carlos DeSantiago.
“I would see him out there every Tuesday, and obviously just kind of wave,” said DeSantiago, who works for Western Disposal. “He was always super excited to see me, with a smile on his face.”
Then, one Tuesday this spring, DeSantiago got out of the truck and introduced himself to Rudy. To his surprise, Rudy gave him a hug, and the rest was history.
“It grew even more from there,” DeSantiago said. “He felt comfortable with me, and I felt comfortable with him. Next time, I brought him into the truck and showed him how to honk. The bond definitely took off from there.”
To say that DeSantiago inspires Rudy is an understatement. Rudy has learned what’s recyclable and what’s compostable. This fall, Rudy dressed up as DeSantiago for Halloween, his costume complete with a paper mache Western Disposal truck. In one of Rudy’s toy garbage trucks, the driver even has a name: Carlos.
“I don’t think we’ll ever look at trash trucks the same way,” said Ellory Wien. “I see a garbage truck and I get excited.”
Rudy gets home from school around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, which usually aligns with DeSantiago’s arrival, and Rudy won’t leave the driveway until he sees his favorite truck driver.
“As a parent, it’s so amazing how curious kids are and how they just open up your eyes to the world in certain ways,” said Andrew Wien, Rudy’s dad. “Rudy’s joy is infectious.”
Andrew Wien also started following DeSantiago’s truck on his bike, with Rudy sitting in front of him. He even takes off work early on Tuesdays so he has time to chase DeSantiago around the neighborhood and let his son see multiple bins get dumped.
“I also wanted Rudy to enjoy mountain biking with me so I could take him on mountain bike rides,” Andrew Wien explained. “I wanted to associate that with a positive activity. And now, we’ve gone on three-hour mountain bike rides, because he likes it so much.”
Ellory Wien said Rudy talks about DeSantiago “all the time” at school. She said the attention has helped create a bit of a “Carlos Fan Club” both at school and around the neighborhood.
“Everybody in our neighborhood knows about Carlos now,” she said.
DeSantiago has been working in trash collection for around 13 years, both for Western Disposal and the city of Longmont. His days usually start at 6 a.m., prepping the truck in the yard before picking up the first bin at 7 a.m.
The schedule can be pretty monotonous, he said, but Tuesdays are one of his favorite days.
“I don’t think (Rudy) conscientiously knows that I enjoy it as much as he enjoys it,” DeSantiago said. “I could be having a bad day … but then I know that I’m going to see him later. I could be low on energy and I’ll see him and it brings me up. It’s a boost of energy.”
DeSantiago said he tries to bring a positivity to his job that makes it easy to connect with kids like Rudy. While Rudy is arguably his no. 1 fan, DeSantiago said he has friends on his routes every day.
“I feel like sometimes people don’t acknowledge us, and there’s some people that can be rude and mean, but then there’s people like them,” DeSantiago said.
DeSantiago mentioned that he’d occasionally watch YouTube videos of delivery drivers and other garbage collectors forming bonds with kids on their routes, but never expected to become one of them.
“It’s definitely brought a purpose,” he said.
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