Garbage Land, a book I read

Huzzah for little free libraries (both the official ones, and their spin-offs).  With the public libraries closed down, I've been getting a lot of my reading material from these little neighborhood kiosks.  Much of the stuff in these adorable little book-houses is not worth writing about (and some, I put back midway through the book, really).   

But the occasional "click" find makes scouting through these places worth it for me.  I scored big when I picked up Elizabeth Royte's Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash.  Royte is a journalist who got curious about where her trash goes.  So, she decided to track it all to its final resting place -- a more challenging task than she'd imagined.  This book came out in 2005, so some of it is slightly dated, but it's still quite illuminating.   I was kind of fascinated by the paper recycling chapter: it convinced me, for example, that it's really okay to put the envelopes with those little plastic windows in the "office paper" recycling, because the system automatically floats the plastic pieces out of the slurry, but that wrapping paper is highly problematic.  

Each chapter is a combination of story telling and fact finding.  She tells stories about her own trash, and also about her efforts to meet with the people who deal with her trash -- many of whom are reluctant to open up their practices to an investigative journalist.  Each chapter deals with one aspect of garbage:  Chapter 5 for example, is "Behold this Compost", and chapter nine ("Satan's resin") describes plastic.  

 But even though this is Plastic-free July, I'll just share a passage (pages 32-33)  from the first chapter: "Dark Angels of Detritus". 

Most people don't think of garbage collection as particularly dangerous work.  It may be dirty, boring, and strenuous, but compared to the potential perils of, say, coal mining, the risks of heaving trash seems minor.  In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies refuse collection as "high-hazard" work, along with logging, fishing, driving a taxicab, and, yes, mining.  While the fatality rate for all occupations is 4.7 per 100,000 workers,  garbage collectors die at a rate of 46 per 100,000.   In fact , they're approximately three times more likely to be killed on the job than police officers or firefighters.

 

Six days a week New York's Strongest---who along with New York's Finest (the cops) and New York's Bravest (its firefighters) constitute the city's essential uniformed services---operate heavy machinery and heave ten thousand pounds in snow and ice, in scorching heat and driving rain.  Cars and trucks rip past them on narrow streets.  Danger lurks in every sack: sharp metal and broken glass, protruding nails and wire.  And then there are the liquids.  Three New York City san men have been injured and one killed by acid bursting from hoppers.

I've read more recent versions of this -- the New Yorker magazine had a really interesting article on the hazard that garbage collectors face,  adding aspects like rushed timetables and faulty equipment to the long list of daily dangers.  

What is my role in this? Or more specifically, how can I help to minimize the dangers to these anonymous people who clean up after me?  I hope that my efforts to minimize the amount of trash our family produces would help.  I've also taken to heart some of Royte's takeaways, which she describes toward the end of the book as she wraps up (so to speak) her own discoveries during this year of garbage curiosity. 

I'd also begun to act differently around my garbage.  If it started to rain, I tried to run downstairs and cover the cans.  I tied up my cardboard the way Jorge and Jack wanted, and I taped the ends of anything sharp.  I position the trash cans on the sidewalk in a gap between parked cars.  I cultivated a respect for the men and women who almost invisibly whisked it all away . . .  (page 281)