[Practicality]

There was still a driver, but all the bins and cans were ID tagged and had weight sensors installed. This was earlier technology (a lot of cities have similar things now), but it was basically a locking hydraulic lift that coupled with an interface on the cans. That picked the cans up over the truck and inverted them. So it just dumped things into the truck.

So there were no workers, just a driver.

Because of the jobs issue, they went back to having two men that pick up the cans by hand. But because everyone had the new cans with all the extra hardware now the work was harder. It was the worst of both worlds until they issued everyone new regular trash cans a few years later.