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Garbage's Truckers * USA - A risky job most 'couldn't handle'
Handling garbage is a tough, often-hazardous, mostly under-appreciated and largely ignored job that underpins public health in modern society
Long Beach,CA,USA-The Long Beach Press-Telegram, by Kristopher Hanson -8 June 2008: -- Rotting meat crawling with maggots. Jugs leaking toxic chemicals. A broken chair jagged with rusting nails. Giant rats. The occasional corpse... In a sizable, dense urban terrain like Long Beach, a few days of missed trash pickup can create serious public health dangers, never mind the stomach-turning stench... Residents here generate some 200,000 tons of trash each year, and it's the job of the city's Refuse Division to pick up, haul and dispose of this frequently toxic pile of discarded consumer waste... Rain or shine, six days a week - and occasionally seven - the city's 120 garbage collectors move through Long Beach's alleys, streets, driveways and parking lots collecting society's filth... At the end of the day, most sanitation workers say they only seek a decent living, healthy retirement and some respect, and consider themselves lucky to achieve even one of those goals... "The thing is, a lot of guys retire, and they don't last too long," said Arthur Stano, who at 29 years is the division's longest-serving sanitation man. "They end up with heart attacks or cancer. Anyway you look at it, refuse is always one of the most dangerous jobs."... (Photo by Stephen Carr/Staff Photographer - Long Beach refuse worker Jose Corona stands to the side of his trash truck as a precaution while the compactor crushes a load from his Belmont Heights route) Labels: truckers' stories
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