BELGRADE — The transfer station closed three hours early Saturday after someone dumping garbage backed a pickup truck into the trash hopper but avoided injury.

Few details were available Saturday afternoon, but Fire Chief Daniel MacKenzie said the truck’s diver wasn’t hurt and he was out of the truck before first responders got to the scene around noon Saturday.

MacKenzie said he didn’t know the man’s name or why the truck went into the hopper, because he didn’t interview him.

“I don’t think he really knows what happened,” MacKenzie said.

MacKenzie also said he didn’t know how the man got out of the truck.

At the scene, station manager Ken Scheno said he didn’t want to comment on the incident.

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“I’ll tell you what I’m telling every other Belgrade resident,” he said. “We’re closed. Someone backed a pickup truck into the hopper.”

The truck, which was loaded onto a flatbed tow truck, was a late-model maroon Ford F150 extended cab pickup with Massachusetts license plates. It had scratches on the cab roof and on the outside of the truck bed, as well as minor dents in the back of the truck bed and tailgate.

Scheno said the transfer station will be open Tuesday for residents who weren’t able to dump their trash Saturday. He said he also would be there Monday.

The station is normally open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. As 3 o’clock approached Saturday afternoon, a worker turned away a steady stream of residents and summer visitors with cars and trucks loaded with garbage and recyclables.

The garbage hopper is a ground-level stainless steel pit, about 10 feet deep with sides that slant inward to a hole in the bottom. Garbage thrown into the hopper slides down the sides into the hole, where a block of steel with 1,800 pounds of pressure pushes the garbage into a dumpster parked behind the hopper.

It is surrounded by a wall about 3 feet high on the outside, where residents pull up and toss garbage in, but one side is open, barred by a chain, a bar and a curb a few inches high, where pickup and garbage trucks back in to dump larger loads.


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