Standing on the beach in Las Playas, California, Maxwell “Max” Potterdam III watches through night goggles as workers from Chemlife, his paint-thinner manufacturing company, dump barrels filled with toxic material into the ocean. City councilman Jack Berger tells Potterdam he cannot support this activity because the barrels are leaking, and he threatens to expose the operation. As Councilman Berger drives away, he checks his portable recorder to make sure he has the conversation on tape. Potterdam orders his minions, Mario and Biff, to take care of “the problem.” The next morning, James St. James awakens on the beach and goes to his job as a trash collector for Shoreline Waste. Meanwhile, his partner, Carl Taylor, fires an air rifle at a Jack Berger election poster and spies on Susan Wilkins, an attractive stranger in a nearby apartment building. Later, Carl and James begin their rounds as trash collectors and feud with Luzinski and Frost, two fellow workers in another truck. When Carl opens the glove compartment, an air bag inflates, filling the cab. Meanwhile, Jack Berger looks out the window of his campaign office, sees Biff and Mario sitting in a car, and fears they want his incriminating audiotape. Susan Wilkins, Berger’s assistant, enters his office to discuss a reggae band hired to play at his campaign fundraiser and lays their music demo cassette on his desk. When Berger tells Susan he trusts her taste in music, she grabs her materials and leaves. Meanwhile, as Carl and James pick up trashcans, they throw garbage at each other, roll a bowling ball down an alley, and play Frisbee with can lids. Mike and Jeff, two Las Playas beach cops, stop and harass them. During lunch, Carl and James drink beer at a beach cafe, dream about opening a surf shop, then strip off their overalls and go surfing. Councilman Jack Berger goes to Las Playas Police Captain Leo Dalton’s office to report that Potterdam is dumping toxic waste into the bay. He gives Dalton the audiocassette, but when Dalton puts it in his player, he hears reggae music. Berger realizes Susan took the wrong tape and hurries out. Capt. Dalton telephones Potterdam to inform him about Jack’s tape. Carl and James drive to the city dump and empty their truck. When they return to the office and shower, they plant an exploding bag of excrement in Luzinski’s locker. Their boss, Walt Richardson, puts them on probation for making too much noise and assigns his brother-in-law, Louis Fedders, to accompany them for two weeks. That night, Carl and James hear Councilman Berger yelling at Susan Wilkins across the courtyard from Carl’s apartment. Assuming the man is harassing the attractive woman, Carl gets his air rifle, and when Susan leaves to retrieve the cassette from her car, Carl shoots Berger in the leg with a pellet. The two trash men duck below the windowsill and laugh. They do not see Mario and Biff enter Susan’s apartment, strangle Berger, and grab the tape cassette. They carry Berger’s body into the garage and place it in a Chemlife barrel in the trunk of Biff’s car. Driving away, they hit a bump, sending the barrel into the street. Susan returns with the tape and finds Berger gone. Next morning, Carl and James meet their overseer, Louis Fedders, an angry and paranoid Vietnam War veteran. When James smarts off in the truck, Louis Fedders throws a punch, but hits Carl instead. At lunch, Fedders makes threats when James takes several of his French fries. Back at work, Carl investigates a barrel next to trashcans and finds Berger’s corpse inside. Louis Fedders recognizes him from a nearby “Elect Councilman Jack Berger” poster, and Carl recognizes him as the man he shot with his pellet gun. Carl believes he killed Berger, but Louis lifts the body out of the barrel and sees that Berger was strangled, not shot. At that moment, beach cops Mike and Jeff drive up. Carl and James put a hat on Berger and hold him up, pretending he is drunk. The officers order the dead man to sober up in the truck, and tell James and Carl the police department is watching them. Carl tells James and Louis that Berger’s death must remain a secret, or else they will be blamed. Meanwhile, Biff and Mario find the barrel on the street, with nothing inside but a tape cassette. They deliver it to Max Potterdam, along with the news that Berger’s body is missing. When Potterdam plays the tape, he hears only music. In the Shoreline locker room, Carl tells James that the woman must have strangled Berger. The three carry the body to Carl’s apartment, sit him in a chair, and place a Richard Nixon mask over his face. After ordering pizza, they watch Susan's window. Carl goes to her building to “snoop around.” As he approaches Susan’s apartment, Susan opens the door and startles him. He falls down and feigns a twisted ankle. Convincing Susan he lives in the building, Carl charms her into putting an icepack on his ankle, and tells her he is a doctor of phrenology. Seeing Carl in what he thinks is the killer’s apartment, James wants to telephone police, but Louis stops him because he hates cops. When a man delivers the pizza they ordered, he sees James moving Jack’s body. Louis Fedders pulls the delivery man into the apartment, then gags and binds him. Potterdam tells Biff and Mario they delivered the wrong cassette, and sends them to Susan’s apartment. Louis has a Vietnam flashback and thinks the pizza man is a Viet Cong hostage. To convince Susan he is a phrenologist, Carl feels the contours of her head and surprises her with personal facts he learned from watching her apartment. Susan suggests she and Carl go out, and when they leave, James and Louis follow, taking the pizza man and Berger’s body with them. Outside, Biff and Mario see them leaving and recognize Berger’s body. Luzinski and Frost park nearby, ready to avenge Carl and James’s booby traps. All three vehicles follow Susan’s Corvette. Policemen Mike and Jeff see James speeding through a red light and stop him, but Louis puts the pellet gun to the pizza man’s head and makes the policemen drop their guns. Louis orders them to disrobe and ties them together on a playground ride. As Susan and Carl walk on the beach, Luzinski tampers with the brakes of her Corvette, and unknowingly leaves a match burning on the carpet. Potterdam’s henchmen take Susan and Carl prisoner, but when Biff and Mario get into an argument, Susan and Carl escape. As they race toward her Corvette, it explodes, so they keep running. Carl reveals how he saw Jack Berger in her apartment, and later found him dead. They try to steal Mike and Jeff’s cruiser, but Biff puts a gun to Carl’s head. Max Potterdam arrives in his limousine, grabs the cassette tape, and tells his minions to take Carl and Susan to Chemlife. Louis and James, with the pizza man and Berger’s body, follow them to the factory. To crash into the facility, James steals his trash truck from the sanitation yard. Elsewhere, Biff and Mario place Susan and Carl into barrels. Potterdam tells a dozen employees he wants all the waste barrels dumped before sunrise, and the workers fill the transport trucks. When Carl’s barrel is placed on a truck bed, he rocks until it falls and hits the ground, knocking off the lid. James joins him, and they leap onto the back gate of the truck. Meanwhile, police arrive and arrest Louis, but he disarms them, ties them up, and steals their cruiser. When the trucks reach the dump, James and Carl jump off and hide, watching workers roll the barrels down a hill into shallow water. Louis arrives in the police car, and James and Carl try to take several workers prisoner, but the Chemlife employees rush them. While James, Louis, and the pizza man fight off the workers, Carl finds Susan on a truck and frees her. They kiss, but Max Potterdam attacks them with a bulldozer. Carl and Susan leap before the truck tumbles town the hill. The bulldozer becomes stuck, and as Potterdam climbs out, Susan spray paints his face, and puts him in his limousine, where Berger’s body sits. He tries to run, but Carl shoots him with a pellet. Potterdam falls into a drainpipe and lands in toxic water. Carl, Susan, James, Louis, and the pizza man declare victory. In the morning, a dog finds Mike and Jeff tied up and urinates on them. A woman telephones a morning radio show to report that her boyfriend has not come home from his pizza delivery job.