Horses Make the Rounds on Trash Day in Bristol, Vt.

Elizabeth Ferry
Vermont Correspondent

BRISTOL, Vt. — If the jingle bells are ringing in Bristol, Vermont, it must be Friday. And as everyone knows, in this small town where the Champlain Valley meets the Green Mountains, Friday is trash day.

Every Friday since 1996, Pat Palmer of Thornapple Farm in New Haven, Vt. has used a team of workhorses to pick up Bristol’s trash and recyclable materials.

Townspeople know they are coming by the sound of hooves and the ringing of the harness bells.

On a recent Friday, snow and freezing rain were predicted, but instead the weather was balmy. The vagaries of weather are unimportant to Palmer and his small crew of helpers. “I love doing this,” Palmer said with conviction. “To me, it’s like the start of a three-day weekend every week.”

Working the route with Palmer were Jake and Jerry, a pair of four-year-old Percherons that he purchased in Harrisburg, Pa. early in 2009. Hauling the trash bags and tossing them into the wagon is Palmer’s assistant, Lynda Malzac of Bristol, Vt., and an enthusiastic trash route customer and volunteer, Bianca Magiera. Magiera’s young daughter, Julia, rides in front with Palmer, sometimes adding her own tiny voice to Palmer’s when he says “whoa.”

“Isn’t this great?” Lynda called from the back. There is joy in the air.

Joy at picking up the trash?

“I wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t for the horses,” Lynda said as she hoisted one very heavy bag. “There are diapers in this one,” she added. “Diapers will get you every time!”

One hundred years ago, rag collectors made a routine of rounds through rural villages to pick up rags and other worn-out items. The rag collectors disappeared about the time that the automobile arrived on the scene. Today, Palmer runs the only known horse-drawn trash collection in the United States.

What makes this possible in Bristol, Vt.? The answer is simple: it is the blending of local factors, including geography, politics, horse lovers and citizens’ choice. None of these is extraordinary, but added together, result in something special.

Palmer started the route when Bristol needed to find someone other than the town road crew to pick up the trash. In 1996, the project was put out to bid and Palmer won. The town is located on a plateau; its relative flatness contributes to the horses’ success.

Bristol has a history of horse appreciation and may be the only town in the state with an outdoor public riding rink. It also has knowledgeable horsemen like Palmer and Malzac, who are happiest when they have a set of reins in their hands. Even Magiera, who volunteers on the route, knows how to drive a team, a skill that she learned in her native Germany.

And the town has people who choose Palmer and his Percherons.

There are other options in town. Residents can take their own trash to the landfill, or hire the regional trash hauling company, Casella, to come with trucks. Palmer himself is a customer of Casella, which, for a modest per-bag fee, transports the materials he collects to a collection center outside of Burlington, about 15 miles away.

Palmer’s customers are about 250 in number. He charges $4 per bag for trash in black bags. Recycling (color-coded in clear bags) is free, but it has to accompany a bag of trash. A full load weighs about 6,000 pounds; the wagon accounts for about half of that.

Julia Magiera, now age two-and-a-half, has been riding the route for about a year. It started “when she was about as tall as the horses’ knees,” Palmer recalls. “She would walk toward them, and they toward her, until we said ‘whoa.’ She’d reach her hand up and Jake would reach his head down so that she could pat his nose. It was the sweetest thing.”

The horses respond to voice commands. But when a child or a visitor is in the wagon, Palmer drives with the reins.

It is clear that many people on the route take pleasure — even pride — in the horses. “You get to know the houses,” Malzac says. “At some, kids rush to the window; at others, there are shut-ins who wave.” One man was moving out of town and came out to say good-bye. On another street lives the lady who, every week, puts out two large buckets of water for the horses.

Palmer estimates that he makes “about 80 percent of (his) income” with horses. Then he thinks better of his response and revises it. “Eighty percent of my income and 90 percent of my expenses,” he deadpanned.

Palmer has other carriages, wagons and sleighs which Jake and Jerry pull for weddings and other special occasions. He also trains draft horses and teaches people to drive them. When not doing the Friday rounds, Malzac trains light horses.

Perhaps Palmer’s most unusual use of horses is during moose season.

"Sometimes we go up to pull out a moose that’s been shot in the Green Mountain National Forest. It being a national forest, you can’t take a motorized vehicle in there,” he explained.

“I remember the first time I got behind a pair of horses,” Palmer said, looking off into the distance. “I said to myself, ‘This is what I was born to do.’”