Just trashed
Drunken waste hauler mashes 8 cars: cops
A PRIVATE garbage truck’s trashed driver lost control of his massive rig and slammed into several cars, a tree and a Brooklyn resident’s front gate Saturday, police said.
Anthony Castaldo, 40, was in a drunken stupor while driving down 60th St. between 19th and 20th Aves. in Borough Park about 5:20 a.m. when he lost control.
The 64,000-pound truck crushed eight parked vehicles — knocking them around like Matchbox cars — before slamming into a tree and coming to a stop in someone’s front yard, steps from the stoop.
Miraculously, no one was hit, police said.
Castaldo, of Brooklyn, climbed out of his truck and ran off, but was quickly arrested by police, authorities said. One of the cops injured his elbow and hand during the pursuit.
Police charged Castaldo with resisting arrest, drunken and reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident and other charges. His arraignment was pending.
The truck he was driving belonged to Viking Sanitation, which has a garage in nearby Bath Beach.
A spokesman for Viking said Castaldo was immediately suspended.
“Our company has a long track record of safety and we hold ourselves to high standards, including random drug testing for drivers,” the spokesman said in a statement. “It appears that this driver failed to adhere to our standards.”
The police are continuing to investigate the crash, with the help of the city’s Business Integrity Commission, which oversees private carting companies in the five boroughs.
Saturday’s arrest is another black mark for the city’s private carting industry, which has been criticized of late for being maverick late-night menaces on the road.
In May, it was revealed that Bronx commercial garbage hauler Sean Spence of Sanitation Salvage had killed two people during separate incidents on his route — and then lied about the identity of one of the victims he struck.
Spence told police that the victim in a fatal crash in November was a crazed homeless man who suddenly jumped onto the side of the rig, but the man was actually an off-the-books worker who was helping on his route, sources with knowledge of the case said. The worker fell off the side of the truck and was crushed by the trucks rear wheels.
On April 27, Spence fatally struck Leon Clark on E. 152nd St. near Jackson Ave. in Morrisania. Clark, who was in his 70s and lived in the nearby Adams Houses, died at the scene, cops said.
Spence, 33, is suspended from his trash-hauling job while the city and the NYPD work to revoke his commercial drivers license.
Carting companies pick up garbage from private businesses while the city’s Sanitation Department trucks haul trash from residences.
The de Blasio administration is working on overhauling the commercial waste industry. They hope to launch a new system where the city is divided into zones and one company is tapped to pick up trash from businesses in each area.
A 2016 Sanitation Department study said the plan would cut truck traffic and pollution.
Private trash carters killed 43 New Yorkers between 2010 and November 2017, city data shows.