Cart Update 2026: My Trash and Recycling Carts

Today I present a cart update featuring every trash and recycling cart I own. First off are the two Otto Classic carts. These are my town of Newington issued trash and recycling carts. I think the trash cart is from around 2006 but not sure when my town switched over to carts since I didn't live in the town at the time. I do know they delivered the recycling carts in 2012 when Trash Away won the recycling contract from CWPM. Recently I got a second recycling cart, the Otto Edge since I have too much recycling, specifically cardboard, that I got tired of trying to cram into one cart. So people that watch my videos should recognize the Reuter and the two Versa-Karts since I featured them in their own videos in the past. They are from a company called Tobacco Valley Sanitation and they operated in CT from 1965 till 2003 when they sold to WM. For their residential collections they went by the name Community Disposal & Recycling or CDR for short. The Reuter carts were the very first automated carts given out to residents in Cromwell in the 1980’s from a company called Community Waste. They then switched to dark green Turn-Key carts, since they could offer a smaller cart for people that didn't want a large one. Some of those same Reuter and Turn-Key carts remain in Cromwell and a few surrounding towns, in fact I service 8 Reuter's, 3 Turn-Key’s and one small Turn-Key on my routes. A few years later Tobacco Valley bought out Community Waste and slapped their logos on the Reuter’s which is the case with my Reuter I got which has the CDR logo from Tobacco Valley. While those Reuter and Turn-Key carts continued to be used on their routes, Tobacco Valley’s main cart supplier aside from a batch of Toter EVR-1's and Rehrig 68 gallon carts in the 90’s were Versa-Karts from Ameri-Kart. They first used the Tobacco Valley logo on the carts, however once recycling became mandated in CT, Tobacco Valley started using the CDR logo on all of their Versa-Karts and recycling tubs for their residential customers. After WM pulled out of CT in 2007, my company took over all of the accounts and continue to service these same carts. I myself service dozens of these Versa-Karts including a pretty rare 60 gallon one on my Wednesday route. Really solid carts in my humble opinion and my parents still have one that they got in October 2003 right after WM took over. Guess they got one of the last ones. So the big question is where did all these carts come from? Well most of these carts when replaced and show up at my yard are usually not usable anymore. They are cracked, missing lids or missing wheels. Every now and then a non-damaged one turns up at my place, but they are immediately recycled. That was the case with the Reuter and the Tobacco Valley Versa. When they showed up at my yard I asked my dispatcher if I could take them home and he said no problem, as many employees have taken old carts home and the company has no use for them. As for the CDR Versa, that one was actually on my route, but the lid broke and the cart was replaced. I took the cart and replaced the broken lid with another lid from another CDR cart in our yard and presto, good as new. I also recently replaced the wheels from another CDR cart since the old ones were cracked. So while I can't use these carts for trash since Trash Away won't empty a non town issued cart according to one of my coworkers that tried once, I can still use the two Versa’s for yard waste, which I then dump in my neighbors woods behind his house. My initial plan was to do the same with the Reuter, however I discovered that the Reuter is much heavier than the Versa’s and is much harder to dump in my neighbors yard waste pile. So instead I use the Reuter to store my pool supplies during the summer. Of course someday my plan is to move back to Cromwell so I can use these carts once again on trash once I move. So these were the carts my parents had when I was growing up, hence why I wanted these 3 specific carts when I had the chance to grab them. My parents had a Reuter cart originally from Community Waste after a local company called Bob’s Waste Removal sold to them. Back then however recycling wasn’t mandated and you could also dump as much yard waste as you wanted in your trash so my parents switched to another local company that used rear loaders, however a short time later they sold to Tobacco Valley who had also bought out Community Waste. At that point my parents got a Versa with the Tobacco Valley logo. A few years later that cart broke and my parents got a CDR Versa. They had that one until it broke in 2003. When the new CDR cart arrived, the driver was wearing a WM vest so as I mentioned earlier, my parents likely got one of the last CDR carts in existence. I hope everyone enjoys this cart update as I won’t be taking anymore old carts from work. I also won’t be getting anymore carts from Newington unless one of my carts break, so I won’t be making anymore cart videos until I move.