Patent ID: 7553121

Claim:
A method for reducing transfer of mechanical vibrations between a front-loading, waste collecting vehicle and a combination of a fork-liftable refuse container and a side-loading robotic arm mechanism, where the vehicle has frontwardly extending forks for supporting said combination of the container and the side-loading robotic arm mechanism; said vibration reducing method comprising: (a) situating a majority of mass of the side-loading robotic arm mechanism rearwardly of a rearmost, refuse-containing wall of the container; (b) providing the container with fork-receiving pocket means attached to sides of the container for receiving the forks of the front-loading vehicle; and (c) providing clearance assuring means for spacing the rearwardly-mounted major-mass portion of the robotic arm mechanism in front of a hypothetical clearance plane, where the hypothetical clearance plane extends through rear end points of the forks of the front-loading vehicle when the forks are operatively inserted in the fork-receiving pocket means.