The Men and Women Who Carry More Weight Than Your Garbage Bags
What You Can Take From The Garbologists
By Meg Knorr, Marketing Intern | City Theatre Company
*Aliases will be used in this article for the purpose of protecting interviewees’ privacy
“Four people have lost their lives since I’ve been here.”
Any good piece of theatre will leave you with something to think about after the show. Dominique Morisseau’s Paradise Blue may have left you thinking about the destruction caused by urban renewal projects, and SITI Company’s The Medium may have left you thinking about the impact of modern technology on our everyday lives. Lindsay Joelle’s The Garbologists left me thinking about refuse workers and the struggles they face every day on the job.
Inherently, I think we all know that sanitation is a dangerous job, but few realize that it can be deadly — that it has been deadly. It has been deadly in our very own city, and we need to talk about it.
At the Department of Public Works — Bureau of Environmental Services facilities, I sat down with Frank, a route foreman who has been in sanitation for nearly 30 years. I went in with the intention of asking a few easy questions for a profile and left with more than I had bargained for. I left with a responsibility to share, to warn, and to inform. In a way, this is what I signed up for by working in theatre.
In the 29 years that Frank has been working in sanitation, he has witnessed four friends lose their lives on the job. He has carried this with him his whole career.
“I’ve been around here to see a lot of accidents where they could have been avoided,” says Frank. “Four people have lost their lives since I’ve been here. We’re out there working, and people are driving past not paying attention — putting makeup on, talking on the phone, text messaging, the sun comes in their eyes — I watched a guy get crushed.”
Frank described being the first one on the scene, watching his friend slip away, feeling helpless. All because someone wasn’t paying attention.
This seems to be a common theme among the workers I talked to that day. Another route foreman, Jake, said to me: “People don’t care. They think we’re robots, but we’re not; we’re human beings.”
These workers are essential to our health and our general livelihood. Their work prevents further spread of disease and allows our society to continue functioning as it does. Hearing these individuals talk about feeling invisible to and unprotected by the public sparked something in me.
This is part of why I love The Garbologists; it’s a charming show that shines a light on sanitation work and tells a deeply human story while doing so. Lindsay Joelle has written a beautiful play that forces theatregoers to see sanitation workers just as they are: human beings. The show also sparks something in me.
You see, the tough thing about telling new stories on the stage is the questions it evokes:
“Why has it taken this long? Why have we not done more before? What can we do now?”
Sometimes those questions go unanswered or require lengthy legal processes to make a change. This is not the case with The Garbologists and sanitation worker safety. There are a lot of easy things that we can each do right now to make an incredible impact on the safety and wellbeing of Pittsburgh’s sanitation workers.
How to Keep Sanitation Workers Safe
Sanitation is a dangerous job; so dangerous that refuse and recyclable material collectors were ranked 6th on Business Insider’s list of the 34 deadliest jobs in America. These essential workers have to deal with a range of dangers on the job: reckless drivers, broken glass, flammable materials, needles, bees, and more.
Like the character Danny says in The Garbologists, “Jagged can tops. Broken lightbulbs. Rusty nails. Some asshole throws away knives — Knives. In a plastic garbage bag. You use your knee for leverage, they’ll slice through your flesh like butter. You get poked by a needle, I swear to God it’ll be the longest six weeks of your life waiting for those test results.”
Even objects that aren’t sharp can be cause for concern. For example, we all know that technically household batteries shouldn’t be thrown in the garbage, but few realize that it’s because the juice inside of those batteries has the potential to start a truck fire. This is especially true for lithium-ion batteries, like those that come in cellphones, laptops, and e-cigarettes, but regular AA and AAA batteries still pose a threat in the wrong situation.
Hazardous Materials
The question, then, is: “which materials are considered dangerous and how do I properly dispose of them?”
According to Pittsburgh’s Department of Public Works website, the following materials are considered hazardous and cannot be placed out with normal trash or recycling for curbside pick-up:
- TVs
- Monitors
- Printers
- CFL Lightbulbs
- All Peripherals — Keyboards, Mice, External Drives and anything plugged into a computer
- Household Hazardous materials such as propane tanks, liquid paint, pesticides, corrosives (batteries), aerosols, oil or antifreeze.
Your best all-in-one stop to dispose of some of these materials would probably be Batteries Plus Bulbs, which accepts an array of batteries, lightbulbs, and small electronics and has multiple locations around the city.
Sharp Objects
Sharp objects like glass, needles, and knives should never be directly discarded into a trash bag or recycling bin. Hadley Pratt’s 2015 Jekko article “The Definitive Guide to Pittsburgh Recycling” provides helpful tips for their proper disposal. Here are just a few:
- Medical waste like needles and syringes should be placed in a hard container with a lid, labelled “medical waste,” and then placed in the trash.
- Sharp objects like knives or broken glass should be wrapped in paper, placed in a box sealed with tape or string, labelled “sharp,” and then place in the trash or recycling.
The article, though slightly outdated, is worth the read if you’re looking for ways to dispose of other objects like crafting materials, clothing, bikes, plastic bags, and more!
On the Road
This may be the most important one: be careful on the road.
This is important for both your safety and the safety of the refuse workers. When you’re driving behind a garbage truck pay attention to the cautionary signs. In general, you should stay back 30–50 feet. If you’re like me and that’s hard to visualize, think of 30–50 feet as 2–4 mid-size sedans. This space cushion not only makes it easier for the workers to load garbage, but it protects you from any objects that might accidentally fly out the back of the garbage truck.
Garbage trucks take wide right turns, so you never want to pass these vehicles on the right side. When you do pass on the left side, make sure to drive very slowly and be on the lookout for refuse workers as you go.
The next time you see a refuse worker on the road, think about the impact they have on our lives. Stop and say hello, thank them for their work — you never know what impact acknowledging your fellow humanity might have.
