What it’s like as a garbage man
Urbania has a five-part series by a writer who worked as a garbage man for part of the summer, on what it’s like, and the colourful but desperate characters who do it for a living.
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mare 16:20 on 2020-08-22 Permalink
Very nice. It’s amazing how tough that job is, and that our labour and security laws allow such awful and dangerous working conditions. Stress and heavy lifting, no wonder lots of accidents happen, ad no wonder only the lowest social classes do this job.
I know in the Netherlands the job of garbage collector is completely mechanized. They’re only allowed to use the lift to empty the big wheeled containers (like they have here in the burbs) into the trucks. In dense inner city neighbourhoods, where there’s no room for households to park those containers people have to carry their garbage bags (and their glass and paper for recycling) to underground containers at street corners. That whole container is lifted onto a truck when they’re full after a week or so, and an empty one is left behind.
Ian 10:34 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
I worked a recycling truck for a few months, it wasn’t nearly as bad as what this guy went through on garbage trucks but was still bad enough that I quit when it started to snow out. It’s nasty, physically demanding work, but there is something delightful about riding on the back of one of those big trucks when you pick up a bit of speed.
I am kind of horrified that the crews are all subcontracted, though. In a lot of places they are fully unionized city workers, which only seems fair.