From Chicago to New York City, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, U.S. disposal workers are facing a daunting burden: Municipal trash collection is a job more essential than most, and it comes with additional health risks for the people who do it. Since the pandemic arrived, many sanitation workers say they haven’t been given the protective equipment and extra wages that they need to do the task safely. Several U.S. cities have seen coronavirus-related labor shortages and slowdowns, which are coming as municipal budgets are severely stressed. And as the pandemic drags on, the trash keeps piling up.

The issue is threatening to escalate further in New York City: At a news briefing, New York governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters that he had offered to send in support from the National Guard to help collect garbage, just two weeks after Mayor Bill de Blasio had promised to boost trash pickup following complaints from business leaders.

The stakes of municipal trash collection are higher than ever, said Robin Nagle, an anthropology professor at New York University who serves as the resident anthropologist for New York City’s department of sanitation. “Our lives depend on this work being done well,” says Nagle, who has spent much of her career studying urban waste collection and how the job affects the workers she calls “the first guardians of public health.”

Before the coronavirus arrived, waste collectors already had the fifth most dangerous job in the country, according to a 2019 Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis of fatality rates. On long shifts, hoppers — who swing from the back of the truck at each house to pick up bags left on the curb — share airspace. Others work in close quarters in trash-sorting facilities. In May, the Solid Waste Association of North America, or SWANA, a nonprofit waste management advocacy group, estimated that 1,000 sanitation workers nationwide had fallen ill with the coronavirus, many of them concentrated in New York City.

To read the full story, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-29/for-cities-2020-really-is-a-garbage-year.
Authors: Gerald Porter Jr. and Sarah Holder, Bloomberg CityLab
Image: Alexi Rosenfeld, Getty Images, Bloomberg CityLab

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