Talkin’ trash The life of a garbageman
Dave Mercandino, a driver for Republic Services, picks up recyclables Monday.
Josh Ankley with R&K Disposal of Joffre picks up trash on John Street in Langeloth.
The Republic Services landfill in Carnegie
The Republic Services landfill in Imperial
Josh Ankley with R&K Disposal of Joffre tosses a bag of trash into the back of the truck in Langeloth Monday.
Josh Ankley, left, and Josh Thomas with R&K Disposal of Joffre pick up trash in Langeloth on Monday.
It’s 9:30 a.m., and Josh Ankley, a garbage collector for R&K Disposal in Joffre, has already been on the roads for 4 1/2 hours, loading the back of the garbage truck with hundreds of bags of trash.
He hops off the side of the truck and trots toward a pile of garbage bags and trash cans. Ankley dumps the cans and throws the bags into the truck – squat, lift, toss, repeat – and sprints toward another mound of bags.
By early afternoon, Ankley will fill the back of the truck with about 20,000 pounds of trash, and tomorrow he’ll wake up and do it all over again. In rain, snow, ice or heat.
“You won’t find a more thankless job in the country,” said Ankley, 35, who worked at Waste Management Inc. for two years before switching to R&K nearly three years ago. “It can beat you down, both physically and mentally. I tell people I’d donate a day’s pay for them to spend a day doing what we do because I do not believe they could make it through the day.”
Garbage collectors unfailingly complete the task of picking up the trash we leave on the curb each week, but their work, they’ll tell you, doesn’t earn them the respect they deserve.
“I hate to say it, but people look at us as – I don’t want to say scum – they look at you like you’re a lower life form, like, ‘Oh, you’re just a garbageman,'” said Dave Mercandino, a driver and recyclables collector for Republic Services, the second-largest non-hazardous solid waste management company in the United States. The company services several Washington County municipalities and has local headquarters in Carnegie. “They act like we’re a lower class. I have to laugh. What’s surprising is, I do some really wealthy neighborhoods, and most of those people are really friendly. But you get into some of the working-class or lower-income areas, and those people tend to not be as nice to you.”
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans generate 250 million tons of trash annually. Every day, the average person accounts for about 4.6 pounds of trash.
Collecting and hauling trash and recyclables has turned into a monumental job: The National Solid Wastes Management Association estimates that the solid waste industry employs 368,000 people who haul garbage to the nation’s approximately 1,750 landfills and 87 incinerators.
Those workers also collect recyclable products, which are dropped off at one of the 545 materials recovery facilities in the United States (locally, many garbage collectors haul trash to Imperial Landfill and Brooke County Landfill in Colliers, W.Va., and recyclables are dropped off at a Neville Island site).
To put that in perpsective, you could bury more than 990,000 football fields under six-foot-high piles of trash.
“We’ll never be out of work,” Mercandino said with a laugh.
Trash collection isn’t only tough, dirty and demanding work. It’s also dangerous. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics reported in 2015 that trash collectors hold down the seventh-most-dangerous job in the country, trailing fishermen, loggers, aircraft pilots, roofers, extraction workers, and iron and steelworkers.
Brian Mankowski, operations supervisor for Republic Services, said people often toss hazardous items into the trash – broken glass, splintered boards, wood with nails and screws protruding, medical waste including hypodermic needles, IV bags and radioactive bandages, pressurized containers, pesticides, bleach and pool chemicals, and animal carcasses.
“I had a gentleman who got stuck by a needle his first week. It was in the trash, someone threw it in the bag, he went to pick up the bag and it stuck him,” said Mankowski. “We had to drive out to his location and take him straight to the hospital to get him cleaned up and tested. It happens a lot. I take the needle with me now so the doctors can see what it is. I do that to protect my guys.”
Ankley recently was struck by broken glass when fluorescent tubes stuffed in a trash bag shattered and shot out of the compactor in the back of the truck.
John Thomas, owner of R&K Disposal, which has six employees, said he purchased the business in 2013 after the previous owner was seriously injured when a Dumpster slipped from chains and crushed his leg.
Mercandino said he and other trash collectors also have to be on constant alert for careless drivers.
“I read a lot of garbage-related sites, and every day I read about garbagemen getting hit by cars. People don’t care. They’re in a big hurry and we’re in their way. I’ve seen so many people take chances,” said Mercandino, who drives an automatic lifter with a claw on the side of the truck that lifts and dumps the recyclables he collects. “We’ll be on a hill or on a curve, and they have no idea what’s ahead of them, but they’ll fly around us.”
In 1896, New York City, which had formed a sanitation department a year earlier, held a parade for sanitation workers, who were hailed as heroes by residents for their efforts to clear trash from the streets. It’s something Mercandino said he doubts will happen again for garbagemen anytime soon.
But overall, Mercandino, who earned about $60,000 last year, is satisfied with his work.
“I enjoy it. I like what I do. And there are people who appreciate what we do. At Christmastime, we get tips,” he said, noting that he received about $400 in gift cards and cash from customers. “The guys who do trash by hand get a lot more in some neighborhoods. There are guys who get $3,000 to $5,000 every year. They make more money, salary-wise, than I do, too.”
But garbagemen say that collecting trash isn’t for everyone.
Said Josh Thomas, who helps run R&K with his father, “It’s one of those jobs that no one wants because they know it’s gross.”
Ankley is taking classes to become a certified personal trainer.
“I have nothing against being a garbageman, but I don’t want to do it forever. Your body won’t allow it. It’s hard on your back, and guys are always pulling a muscle or tearing a ligament,” he said. “In this job, you have to find something that keeps you going. I treat it like a workout with running, lifting, throwing and carrying. I can’t do this forever. I want to be able to move when I’m 50 or 60.”