Man climbs into bin to relieve himself, then gets trapped in Almería recycling lorry

A man who’d climbed into a recycling bin near the bottom of Almería’s Paseo ended up being emptied into the back of a bin lorry on Tuesday morning, October 6. However, a few odd movements on the driver’s camera screen meant the truck stopped before anything worse could happen.

The driver spotted ‘strange movements’ on his camera

People heading along the lower end of the Paseo de Almería on the morning of Tuesday October 6 came across an unusual rescue, as firefighters lifted a man out of the back of a bin lorry in front of the Port Authority building. 

Between about 8.30am and 9am, he’d climbed into a blue paper and cardboard recycling container where the Paseo meets Rambla Federico García Lorca, with local reports saying he’d gone in to relieve himself. Then the collection lorry, run by the city’s waste contractor Urbaser, arrived to empty it and he fell straight into the hopper (the open compartment at the back where rubbish lands before it’s compacted).

The driver noticed strange movements on the camera that shows the inside of the hopper, so he stopped the lorry at the crossing of Calle Reina Regente and the vía parque (the main road along the port) and called the emergency services.

Firefighters used ladders to lift him out

Almería’s firefighters arrived with an engine and a van, and worked from ladders to reach the hopper and bring the man out with a harness, making sure the compacting system stayed switched off throughout. Local Police officers kept traffic moving around the scene.

His injuries were first described as minor. However, hospital sources later said he’d been admitted to Hospital Universitario Torrecárdenas with a fracture and was being kept under observation. His name, age and circumstances haven’t been released.

Only a month earlier, a man in Cartagena died

The outcome could have been very different, and recent history shows just how quickly. At the start of September, a man hiding in a rubbish container on Calle Carlos III in Cartagena died after it was emptied into a lorry and the compactor started up, with the driver only stopping the machinery after apparently hearing his cries.

That death is under judicial investigation, and it wasn’t the first. There have been at least three earlier cases in Spain of people dying after being collected inside containers, in Alcalá de Guadaíra in 2003, Palma in 2024 and Castellón in 2025.

A bin is never somewhere to shelter

Whether it’s to sleep, hide, dig for something or just get out of sight for a minute, climbing into a street container is a far bigger gamble than it looks. Plenty of people will think ‘it’ll only be a second’, but once the lorry tips it, whoever is inside has no say in what happens next.

In this case, a camera and an alert driver made the difference. So if you ever see someone climbing into a container or sleeping in one, or hear noises coming from inside, call 112 straight away rather than assuming somebody else will.