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As a Waste Management truck rolled by me at the landfill, I thought of the workers I usually see hanging off the back, pausing at every driveway to pick up our cans and throw our trash into the truck’s compactor. God, I give thanks for these garbage collectors, working a nasty but necessary job. Civil servants, they should be called. These workers make about $28,000 a year in Virginia.
In 1968, after two Memphis garbage collectors were tragically killed by a malfunctioning truck, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in support of sanitation workers on strike, calling for better safety standards and a decent wage. In 1981, a garbage strike in New York City led residents to pile mountains of trash around Manhattan. Pedestrians had nowhere to walk, and a growing stink filled the air. The strike was resolved on December 17 that year as an early Christmas gift to the city, providing sanitation workers with increased pay and more sick days.
Can we imagine life without these essential workers? When I consider all I throw in the black bins that I conveniently wheel to the end of my driveway – all the nasty, disgusting funk, the bags that sometimes rip and leak – I give thanks to God for sanitation workers, for their diligence despite their dirty, physically demanding jobs. These workers who keep our cities clean and efficiently running often get overlooked. Thank you, God, for the garbage collector.
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