Talking Trash

Until moving to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, my trash had always been removed by a garbage man. They were always men. We call them sanitation workers, today and women may have joined their ranks –but I’m not sure.

I never knew one as an individual except briefly on Long Island’s North Fork where a garbage man collected our trash in the small rural community where I summered. He liked to talk, share local gossip and would linger with his customers, chatting, before moving on. Scruffy, perhaps, but locals said he owned half of the North Fork.

Living on the Eastern Shore, I first took my trash to the dump. It was challenging, planning my runs, and storing trash judiciously to keep it from animals. It became a bother. A neighbor with garbage pickup invited me to split his bill and I could then bring garbage to his house to be removed.  We talked trash and struck a deal, and again, a garbage man served me. Still, I didn’t know who the man was.

For performing such a critical service, why are sanitation workers so invisible and under recognized?

It’s because the garbage man’s task – the word garbage itself is pejorative – has been framed negatively, unlike, say the banker or the philanthropist who provide communities with things they value, like money. The garbage man, on the other hand, rids us of what we don’t want, but what we also find repulsive.  It’s a dirty job and I think the sanitation worker’s task and person are unfairly disparaged because of trash’s unpleasant associations.

We treat our own personalities similarly.  The character traits that we find repugnant in ourselves, we hope remain hidden from others while secretly wishing someone could just rid us of them. To that end, therapists and analysts are frequently consulted – but we keep such consultations secret. Our more attractive attributes – the ones socially admired - we are more than willing for others to acknowledge. We showcase these characteristics regularly.

Sanitation workers perform three critical services: insuring community health, contributing to an attractive environment, while helping us to maintain our dignity as humans. It’s worth noting that the community’s infrastructure is severely compromised when a waste removal system is not in place. Without sanitation workers, even those community servants to whom we attribute status and honor couldn’t function.

Having said this, for all the years that I’ve enjoyed garbage pickup, it never once occurred to me to give twenty dollars to the worker at Christmas as I normally do for the mail carrier or for the guy that delivers our paper. Considering the magnitude of the service the sanitation worker performs, I’m embarrassed to admit this.

National awareness days are growing exponentially. They honor those of society who serve us well. Why not initiate a “Sanitation Workers Awareness Day.” It would be a start. Next might come bumper stickers that read, “Have you hugged a sanitation worker, today.”  A tougher sell, to be sure, but it might break the discriminatory view we’ve held of those who’ve faithfully rid us of what we find disagreeable and don’t want, thereby freeing us up to seek what we find mo