Witnessing overconsumption up close
Day in the Life of a Garbage Collector
The nastiest thing he’s seen? “A cow head staring right at me”
Climbing into a Mack truck is a powerful feeling.
You have enough horses under the hood to haul 30 tons.
You’re fueled by duel 50-gallon gas tanks that cost hundreds of dollars to fill.
And you sit high enough in the saddle to dwarf the most puffed-up SUV owner.
Unfortunately, creating all that torque means comfort gets sacrificed.
“These trucks here,” driver Earnest Wright Jr. says as he jostles violently in his seat, “they are not a very smooth ride.”
Talk about an understatement.
It’s all I can do to keep the pen from flying out of my hand as I sit shotgun and try to take semi-legible notes.
Wright tells me things should settle down once the jacked-up suspension gets a load to carry. Until then, we bounce along just after sunrise on our first-morning run.
It’s time to take out the trash.
We used to live with our trash. Despite its obvious public health implications, garbage had an actual economic value for the poor. Stephanie Buck wrote…
