What do the sweepers think about as they work away in silence? When asked, Yoshida answers in a few words: “The people coming to pray.” Birdsong echoes through the dense green woods of Meiji Jingu, and the air around the road cleaned by Yoshida feels pure and fresh. A broom’s efficiency is dependent on how well the twigs are attached, so daily maintenance is essential. Sweepers attach the twigs to the broom themselves, and these wear away every time they are used to draw the leaves in close, especially on rainy days. I picked up a lawn sweeper at an auction a few years ago and its proven to. Too thick and it is hard to grip, too thin and it bends so poorly as to be useless. When you have a lot of trees dealing with leaves in the fall can be a real drag. Getting the thickness right is surprisingly difficult. With the new sweeping machines from STIHL you can clean paths, parks and driveways six times faster than you can with a broom. It’s also hard to keep balanced because it’s so long.” The first thing to do when starting this job is to make the broom. “If the sweeping motion is too weak leaves are left behind, but if it’s too strong the broom gets caught in the gravel. The longer the broom, the wider its reach, but handling a long broom is not easy. The broom that Yoshida uses is taller than he is. The gravel is smoothed out at the same time. A blower is used to move the leaves from the edge into the road, where they are scraped together with a broom and gathered up with a dustpan. Unfortunately, there is no special trick for sweeping them up all at once. An enormous volume of leaves from the 170,000 or so trees and shrubs drops to the ground throughout the shrine precinct. It’s nice being surrounded by all this green.” Almost all of what falls onto the road is leaves.

“I’ve swept the main shrine,” he says, “but I like cleaning the road. But he has been in this job for nine years and so has experience cleaning three other sections, since assigned areas are rotated every two to three years. Yoshii Yoshida’s assigned area is the road. The road and main shrine environs are divided up amongst ten sweepers, who head out to their assigned area every day at 7:00 a.m. Thinking of the constant stream of people who have walked up and back along this very same road for hundreds of years to pray at the shrine fills the mind with a myriad of emotions.Ī team of skilled sweepers, known as fukiya-san, keep the 700,000 square meter grounds of the Meiji Jingu shrine clean.

It feels good to walk along a clean, freshly swept road. Cleaning the road to the shrine is pleasant work, he says. Only ODB has these technologies that measurably optimize efficiency and operational flexibility.Yoshiine Yoshida has been a sweeper at Meiji Jingu for nine years. This innovation and functionality is demonstrated in the patent-pending single-engine debris collector truck system, the patented CDL-exempt debris collector truck, and our patented ECO-MODE™. Most Cost-Effective with the Lowest Cost of Operation and Ownership.ODB’s dedicated on continuous improvement and industry-changing innovation, that is based on real-world feedback from our customers, dealers and relentless testing, and ensures ODB Debris & Leaf Collection systems are the… From street sweeper brushes and brooms, to debris and leaf collection equipment that are recognized as the highest performing and most efficient systems available. Since 1910, the Old Dominion Brush Company (ODB) has been manufacturing the tools and equipment to help keep communities clean.

Leaf broom sweeper