Will AI replace Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
20/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 35% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 32% of the work
What the job involves
Collect and dump refuse or recyclable materials from containers into truck. May drive truck.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(5)
- Fill out defective equipment reports.
- Communicate with dispatchers concerning delays, unsafe sites, accidents, equipment breakdowns, or other maintenance problems.
- Check road or weather conditions to determine how routes will be affected.
- Tag garbage or recycling containers to inform customers of problems, such as excess garbage or inclusion of items that are not permitted.
- Organize schedules for refuse collection.
Out of reach(9)
- Dump refuse or recyclable materials at disposal sites.
- Refuel trucks or add other fluids, such as oil or brake fluid.
- Inspect trucks prior to beginning routes to ensure safe operating condition.
- Drive trucks, following established routes, through residential streets or alleys or through business or industrial areas.
- Operate equipment that compresses collected refuse.
and 4 more
Also called
Refuse Collector · Trash Collector · Collector · Garbage Collector · Garbage Man · Dumpman · Garbage Collection Sanitation Engineer · Junkman
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics