Simple Garbage Truck Coloring Page

Add this simple garbage truck coloring page to your printing pile and you get the vehicle children wave at every week, drawn with nothing extra. Side on, a boxy hopper behind a square cab, a jointed lifting arm folded up over the roof and six wheels along the bottom. One of the easiest free printable simple garbage truck coloring pages in the whole truck collection.

How this coloring page was created

We described it to Colorin AI as 'one bold simple garbage truck with a boxy body and a lifting arm raised at the front, thick outlines'. Asking for the arm to be raised is what gives the page its silhouette. Folded down along the side, the arm disappears into the body. Lifted, it arcs above the cab and becomes the second shape on the sheet.

The generator drew the arm in three hinged sections with a hooked gripper at the end, which is close to how a real side loader actually reaches out and picks up a bin.

Details of this simple garbage truck coloring page

The hopper behind the cab is divided by two upright ribs into three tall panels, and the rear section steps down slightly, so the body reads as two joined boxes rather than one long slab.

There is one detail here that surprises people: a wide brush with a fan of bristles is mounted on the side of the body, on a straight arm. That is a street sweeping brush, and it makes this a cleaning truck as much as a collection truck. The cab is a plain square with one window, a mirror and a small grille, and six wheels run along underneath in a group of two and a group of four. No street, no bins, no background.

The rear of the body has a small step and a grab handle drawn at the very back, which is where a crew member rides between stops. It is a tiny piece of the drawing and it is the detail that most often gets a question out of a child. The cab sits noticeably lower than the hopper behind it, so the truck has a stepped outline rather than a flat roofline, and that step is what makes the silhouette recognizable from a distance.

Coloring Ideas and Techniques

Collection trucks near you are probably green, white or orange, and matching the real one is the quickest way to make this page mean something to a child. The three panels on the hopper are the place for a second color, either as one stripe down the middle panel or as three different tones side by side.

Save the brush for last and color the bristles in a fan of separate strokes rather than one solid block. It is the only soft looking thing on a page made entirely of boxes, and it looks completely different from everything around it. Give the lifting arm a metallic gray so it separates from the body it sits over, and leave all six wheel hubs white so the truck does not get bottom heavy.

Know what day the truck comes down your street? Turn a photo into a coloring page and color yours in its real colors.