Our Strongest foot forward

This month holds America Recycles Day! At work I've become an ambitious over-achiever and decided to hold three different events what in the hell was I thinking? But with all of the excitement over planning and activities and well marketed events one thing can get sorely lost in these kind of one-day-we-care events, I'm looking at you Earth Day, what, or who, we should also be acknowledging: sanitation workers.

Trash and recycling gets picked up in every town every day. We often know the name of our postman or a few faces from the local police and fire departments but do you know your garbage person?

 They are often ignored or looked down upon because they deal with what we no longer want. Garbage collection drivers have hard jobs: they get up early, they do back breaking work, they are in and our of traffic all day and according to the Bureau of Labor statistics have one of the top 5 most dangerous jobs. Then on top of that they are not respected or appreciated as much as say police or fire departments. In NYC the Fire Department is New York's Bravest, the NYPD is New York's Finest but the Department of Sanitation is New York's Strongest. Strongest usually means physical, which for all sanitation workers is true but it also applies to the work that they do.

Strength is also associated with health and healthy communities rely on sanitation workers to clean the streets and take away human and solid waste. Before structured sanitation programs people used to just leave their garbage on the street which lead to disease and sickness. The men and women who collect our waste keep us healthy. And I am not on a soapbox saying that as much as in the trenches of waste collected by our drivers. There's a running joke in my office that people only call when they are upset: the driver's in the way, they missed the pickup, they got too close to my car among dozens of other hilarious phone calls about the exact color of the trash can and what qualifies as furniture. Don't let the drivers be the butt of the joke but the star of the movie - they make modern life livable.

Children seem to get it. In the news we heard of triplets in Florida who give their collection drivers snacks.

 

Check out this video of a girl and her best friend, her waste collection driver:

*Note this is a Nutella advertisement but I am not being paid nor am I promoting their product (although it is delicious). 

SO! I want to and say "thank you!" Collection drivers have a selfless and unforgiving job, you do what you need to do to keep my neighborhood livable & community healthy and I appreciate you for it!

Trashers, go out and say thanks to your collection driver! Don't honk at them when a truck is in your path, DRIVE SLOWLY. Not around when they pick up? Leave them a note on your can! Or, just make sure your trash is secured in bags to prevent spills or injury. It's the small things.

Till next time, stay trashy!