The Recycling Guy

--Scott Santoro, 2002

Tossing a last minute trash bag onto the pile outside was when I first met him. The sanitation truck was backing in, hopper open, and there, standing with one hand in a bag, was the recycling guy.

“Look! Look at this! Your building’s gonna get fined if it happens again!” Though lacking coffee, I somehow managed to understand what he was griping about. The large, crumpled piece of paper the recycling guy was holding was grabbed from inside of a black bag—it should have been in a clear, “recycling” bag.

I wasn’t sure if the paper infraction was mine, or a fellow co-oper’s. Maybe it was an innocent shot into the wrong basket. But it didn’t matter to the recycling guy. The fact that I’d been in front of my building made me the representative.

The expression on my face must have said something like, “Gee, how did that happen?” or, ”THAT paper was in THAT bag? Oh no!” But it’s not that I didn’t care. In fact, I enjoyed his dedication. As a graphic designer, I use a lot of paper preparing brochures and stationary for printing. But there’s always the chance that, in the aftermath of a mocked-up design, a piece might wind up with spray-glue all over it, disqualifying the fiber from being recycled. Is the process not worth the energy? It’s probably more a question for the recycling guy since he’s at the dirty end of paper’s life. But before I could bring up any of these questions or possibilities, the recycling guy just turned and continued down the street.

“Who was that masked man?” He must have realized he’d gone too far—uncontrolled O.C.D. (Obsessive-Compulsive Debris). Still, I empathized with him and wished I could have told him that I was on his side. That I too become an environmental commando in my head whenever I read newspaper articles about Alaskan nature preserves being offered up to oil companies...that my brain shouts in protest when I see a Hummer drive by. And there’s the time when I threatened a twenty-something year-old for throwing his empty ice-cream cup and spoon onto a Brownstown stoop. But I don’t have full-time action like the recycling guy. He’s out there in the trenches.

That’s why I wanted to know his story. How did he get started in the field? How did he find that piece of paper in an opaque bag? Was there a Zen to trash collection? I didn’t really know much about it at all, but I’m guessing that the recycling guy was a captain in the sanitation world. There weren’t any embroidered titles, tarnished pins, or sewn badges, to reveal this—just the fact that while he warned, his fellow colleagues worked.

I’ll bet he’d seen his share of trash—his weathered complexion revealed a long career of walking the city streets. Now, he was in his “exit-level sanitation” phase. The recycling branch of the trade must have been offered to him as he neared retirement. Seems like a good way to ease out—no rotting leftovers or heavy sofas to lift into the mouth of the hopper. Just newspapers, magazines, tomato cans, and old tupperware ready to be chucked into clean, white trucks.

The closest I ever came to sanitation was back when I was sixteen. An old classmate of mine from elementary school, Joe O., had appeared in my family’s backyard one morning, and to my surprise, heaved one of our aluminum garbage cans over his back. He carried it out to the street and when I caught up to him, he explained that he was working a summer job as a garbage man.

The idea of having a paying job was exciting to me back then. “Good money, Scott, and great for building up the arms and legs” he said. “You have to get a Penicillin shot every month,” he yelled out as he hopped onto the back of the truck, “but if you’re interested, let me know and I’ll see if there are any openings!”

I talked with my parents about it and they both agreed that the answer was a flat out, “NO.” That’s the way it is. People have a negative attitude about sanitation. The recycling guy knows the score. Maybe that’s really why he left so fast. He was Joe O., still walking the beat.

Being outside and working with your hands to make the city cleaner is an admirable activity. No sitting behind a desk pushing paper like I do. I can just imagine what it’s like at the end of a shift. There’s probably a ritualistic shower before heading home. The stalls at Manhattan’s sanitation central must be ancient. I’m thinking turn-of-the-century: White-tiled walls, tall ceilings, brass fixtures, and big, round shower heads—the kind you might find at a fancy country club. They hang directly over your head and dump gallons of hot water each minute, like taking a bath while standing up. There’s a satisfaction in washing the day off under a shower head like that—a halo for a dirty angel.

I never saw the recycling guy again, even though I’m sure he’s been back making his rounds. Three floors down from me, at ground level, the bundles are put out at night, and disappear by morning.