How much time do you think about your trash? The garbage you put out on the street, the trash you throw into city wastebaskets, and (sadly) for some of you out there, the trash that you litter on the street. Not much right? We only really seem to think about it when it’s negatively affecting us in some way. When the kitchen trash smells terrible because you cleaned out the fridge and had something extra fragrant in it. Or because you accidentally left something you meant to throw away in your car or room and now it’s stinking up the place. I’ll admit it, once I get the trash out of my life in some way I forget all about it and have never really given much thought to what happens after it’s removed from my possession. I just know it’s permanently and promptly gone when I put it out.

So when Robin Nagle’s book Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City was published it got me thinking about my trash, other people’s trash, and the workforce that has made a career out of very efficiently picking up after everyone. It also got me thinking about why I had never thought about the topic before. After reading Nagle’s book it turns out that I’m not in the minority. That, in fact, sanitation workers make up a workforce that is largely unseen by the general public….unless something doesn’t run smoothly and in those cases the public tends to notice these public servants just enough to behave uglier than their garbage looks.

So here’s why I enjoyed the book and recommend you add it to your reading wish list… Continue Reading »