TEDCity2.0
Robin Nagle: What I discovered in New York City trash
Filmed:
Readability: 3.6
1,728,898 views
New York City residents produce 11,000 tons of garbage every day. Every day! This astonishing statistic is just one of the reasons Robin Nagle started a research project with the city's Department of Sanitation. She walked the routes, operated mechanical brooms, even drove a garbage truck herself--all so she could answer a simple-sounding but complicated question: who cleans up after us?
Robin Nagle - Trash anthropologist
Robin Nagle is an anthropologist with a very particular focus... garbage. Full bio
Robin Nagle is an anthropologist with a very particular focus... garbage. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
I was about 10 years old
0
315
2257
00:14
on a camping trip with my dad
1
2572
1699
00:16
in the Adirondack Mountains, a wilderness area
2
4271
2760
00:19
in the northern part of New York State.
3
7031
2995
00:22
It was a beautiful day.
4
10026
1441
00:23
The forest was sparkling.
5
11467
2002
00:25
The sun made the leaves glow like stained glass,
6
13469
3524
00:28
and if it weren't for the path we were following,
7
16993
3205
00:32
we could almost pretend we were
8
20198
1404
00:33
the first human beings to ever walk that land.
9
21602
3562
00:37
We got to our campsite.
10
25164
1651
00:38
It was a lean-to on a bluff
11
26815
1967
00:40
looking over a crystal, beautiful lake,
12
28782
2696
00:43
when I discovered a horror.
13
31478
2696
00:46
Behind the lean-to was a dump,
14
34174
3098
00:49
maybe 40 feet square
15
37272
1458
00:50
with rotting apple cores
16
38730
2313
00:53
and balled-up aluminum foil,
17
41043
1747
00:54
and a dead sneaker.
18
42790
1749
00:56
And I was astonished,
19
44539
2571
00:59
I was very angry, and I was deeply confused.
20
47110
3432
01:02
The campers who were too lazy
21
50542
1582
01:04
to take out what they had brought in,
22
52124
1958
01:06
who did they think would clean up after them?
23
54082
3845
01:09
That question stayed with me,
24
57927
1909
01:11
and it simplified a little.
25
59836
1967
01:13
Who cleans up after us?
26
61803
2376
01:16
However you configure
27
64179
1422
01:17
or wherever you place the us,
28
65601
1707
01:19
who cleans up after us in Istanbul?
29
67308
2590
01:21
Who cleans up after us in Rio
30
69898
2256
01:24
or in Paris or in London?
31
72154
2529
01:26
Here in New York,
32
74683
1572
01:28
the Department of Sanitation cleans up after us,
33
76255
2592
01:30
to the tune of 11,000 tons of garbage
34
78847
2670
01:33
and 2,000 tons of recyclables every day.
35
81517
4362
01:37
I wanted to get to know them as individuals.
36
85879
2633
01:40
I wanted to understand who takes the job.
37
88512
2846
01:43
What's it like to wear the uniform
38
91358
2519
01:45
and bear that burden?
39
93877
1654
01:47
So I started a research project with them.
40
95531
2653
01:50
I rode in the trucks and walked the routes
41
98184
2539
01:52
and interviewed people in offices and facilities
42
100723
2409
01:55
all over the city,
43
103132
1507
01:56
and I learned a lot,
44
104639
1739
01:58
but I was still an outsider.
45
106378
2349
02:00
I needed to go deeper.
46
108727
1878
02:02
So I took the job as a sanitation worker.
47
110605
3116
02:05
I didn't just ride in the trucks now. I drove the trucks.
48
113721
2647
02:08
And I operated the mechanical brooms and I plowed the snow.
49
116368
3145
02:11
It was a remarkable privilege
50
119513
1899
02:13
and an amazing education.
51
121412
2607
02:16
Everyone asks about the smell.
52
124019
2152
02:18
It's there, but it's not as prevalent as you think,
53
126171
3060
02:21
and on days when it is really bad,
54
129231
1514
02:22
you get used to it rather quickly.
55
130745
2676
02:25
The weight takes a long time to get used to.
56
133421
3197
02:28
I knew people who were several years on the job
57
136618
2287
02:30
whose bodies were still adjusting to the burden
58
138905
2585
02:33
of bearing on your body
59
141490
2081
02:35
tons of trash every week.
60
143571
2979
02:38
Then there's the danger.
61
146550
2184
02:40
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
62
148734
2472
02:43
sanitation work is one of the 10 most dangerous
63
151206
2202
02:45
occupations in the country,
64
153408
1892
02:47
and I learned why.
65
155300
1751
02:49
You're in and out of traffic all day,
66
157051
1421
02:50
and it's zooming around you.
67
158472
961
02:51
It just wants to get past you, so it's often
68
159433
1884
02:53
the motorist is not paying attention.
69
161317
2050
02:55
That's really bad for the worker.
70
163367
1826
02:57
And then the garbage itself is full of hazards
71
165193
2160
02:59
that often fly back out of the truck
72
167353
2019
03:01
and do terrible harm.
73
169372
2081
03:03
I also learned about the relentlessness of trash.
74
171453
2815
03:06
When you step off the curb
75
174268
1311
03:07
and you see a city from behind a truck,
76
175579
2849
03:10
you come to understand that trash
77
178428
1786
03:12
is like a force of nature unto itself.
78
180214
2617
03:14
It never stops coming.
79
182831
2456
03:17
It's also like a form of respiration or circulation.
80
185287
3479
03:20
It must always be in motion.
81
188766
3045
03:23
And then there's the stigma.
82
191811
2048
03:25
You put on the uniform, and you become invisible
83
193859
2916
03:28
until someone is upset with you for whatever reason
84
196775
2304
03:31
like you've blocked traffic with your truck,
85
199079
2315
03:33
or you're taking a break too close to their home,
86
201394
2651
03:36
or you're drinking coffee in their diner,
87
204045
3114
03:39
and they will come and scorn you,
88
207159
2410
03:41
and tell you that they don't want you anywhere near them.
89
209569
3262
03:44
I find the stigma especially ironic,
90
212831
2432
03:47
because I strongly believe that sanitation workers
91
215263
3311
03:50
are the most important labor force
92
218574
1680
03:52
on the streets of the city, for three reasons.
93
220254
3024
03:55
They are the first guardians of public health.
94
223278
2782
03:58
If they're not taking away trash
95
226060
2406
04:00
efficiently and effectively every day,
96
228466
2274
04:02
it starts to spill out of its containments,
97
230740
2711
04:05
and the dangers inherent to it threaten us
98
233451
3726
04:09
in very real ways.
99
237177
1174
04:10
Diseases we've had in check for decades and centuries
100
238351
2971
04:13
burst forth again and start to harm us.
101
241322
2906
04:16
The economy needs them.
102
244228
1672
04:17
If we can't throw out the old stuff,
103
245900
2926
04:20
we have no room for the new stuff,
104
248826
1890
04:22
so then the engines of the economy
105
250716
2069
04:24
start to sputter when consumption is compromised.
106
252785
2929
04:27
I'm not advocating capitalism, I'm just pointing out their relationship.
107
255714
4064
04:31
And then there's what I call
108
259778
1988
04:33
our average, necessary quotidian velocity.
109
261766
4212
04:37
By that I simply mean
110
265978
1049
04:39
how fast we're used to moving
111
267027
2252
04:41
in the contemporary day and age.
112
269279
2132
04:43
We usually don't care for, repair, clean, carry around
113
271411
5344
04:48
our coffee cup, our shopping bag,
114
276755
2637
04:51
our bottle of water.
115
279392
1485
04:52
We use them, we throw them out, we forget about them,
116
280877
2679
04:55
because we know there's a workforce
117
283556
1780
04:57
on the other side that's going to take it all away.
118
285336
3020
05:00
So I want to suggest today a couple of ways
119
288356
2447
05:02
to think about sanitation that will perhaps help
120
290803
4514
05:07
ameliorate the stigma
121
295317
2474
05:09
and bring them into this conversation
122
297791
2231
05:12
of how to craft a city that is sustainable and humane.
123
300022
5590
05:17
Their work, I think, is kind of liturgical.
124
305612
4161
05:21
They're on the streets every day, rhythmically.
125
309773
2461
05:24
They wear a uniform in many cities.
126
312234
2061
05:26
You know when to expect them.
127
314295
1869
05:28
And their work lets us do our work.
128
316164
3923
05:32
They are almost a form of reassurance.
129
320087
2791
05:34
The flow that they maintain
130
322878
1737
05:36
keeps us safe from ourselves,
131
324615
1990
05:38
from our own dross, our cast-offs,
132
326605
2637
05:41
and that flow must be maintained always
133
329242
3258
05:44
no matter what.
134
332500
1633
05:46
On the day after September 11 in 2001,
135
334133
3724
05:49
I heard the growl of a sanitation truck on the street,
136
337857
3287
05:53
and I grabbed my infant son and I ran downstairs
137
341144
2312
05:55
and there was a man doing his paper recycling route
138
343456
2842
05:58
like he did every Wednesday.
139
346298
2182
06:00
And I tried to thank him for doing his work
140
348480
2420
06:02
on that day of all days,
141
350900
2125
06:05
but I started to cry.
142
353025
2601
06:07
And he looked at me,
143
355626
1684
06:09
and he just nodded, and he said,
144
357310
3424
06:12
"We're going to be okay.
145
360734
2878
06:15
We're going to be okay."
146
363612
2641
06:18
It was a little while later that I started
147
366253
1353
06:19
my research with sanitation,
148
367606
1380
06:20
and I met that man again.
149
368986
1414
06:22
His name is Paulie, and we worked together many times,
150
370400
2917
06:25
and we became good friends.
151
373317
1823
06:27
I want to believe that Paulie was right.
152
375140
2827
06:29
We are going to be okay.
153
377967
2202
06:32
But in our effort to reconfigure
154
380169
1977
06:34
how we as a species exist on this planet,
155
382146
3041
06:37
we must include and take account of
156
385187
3295
06:40
all the costs, including the very real human cost
157
388482
3793
06:44
of the labor.
158
392275
1504
06:45
And we also would be well informed
159
393779
2801
06:48
to reach out to the people who do that work
160
396580
2218
06:50
and get their expertise
161
398798
1845
06:52
on how do we think about,
162
400643
1753
06:54
how do we create systems around sustainability
163
402396
3250
06:57
that perhaps take us from curbside recycling,
164
405646
3479
07:01
which is a remarkable success across 40 years,
165
409125
2585
07:03
across the United States and countries around the world,
166
411710
3238
07:06
and lift us up to a broader horizon
167
414948
2802
07:09
where we're looking at other forms of waste
168
417750
2886
07:12
that could be lessened
169
420636
1485
07:14
from manufacturing and industrial sources.
170
422121
2733
07:16
Municipal waste, what we think of when we talk about garbage,
171
424854
4005
07:20
accounts for three percent of the nation's waste stream.
172
428859
3998
07:24
It's a remarkable statistic.
173
432857
2387
07:27
So in the flow of your days,
174
435244
2478
07:29
in the flow of your lives,
175
437722
1526
07:31
next time you see someone whose job is
176
439248
3028
07:34
to clean up after you,
177
442276
3143
07:37
take a moment to acknowledge them.
178
445419
2489
07:39
Take a moment to say thank you.
179
447908
4592
07:44
(Applause)
180
452500
3354
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Robin Nagle - Trash anthropologistRobin Nagle is an anthropologist with a very particular focus... garbage.
Why you should listen
Robin Nagle has been the anthropologist-in-residence at the Department of Sanitation in New York City since 2006.
Nagle's fascination with trash stems from her desire to understand the all-too-often invisible infrastructure that guides the flow of garbage through a megalopolis like New York. After all, the city produces 11,000 tons of rubbish each day... and all of that has to be dealt with somewhere and by someone. If not, damaging health problems and consequences for all. So why do sanitation workers experience such stigma, all too often scorned and berated while on the job? Nagle, who is also director of NYU's Draper Interdisciplinary Master's program in humanities and social thought, determined to find out. She got her sanitation worker license and has spent much time with workers on the job, getting an up-close view of the city's garbage and the systems in place to deal with it.
Her book, Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City was published in 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. See also the profile of her work -- and a photoessay of her favorite places in New York City.
Robin Nagle | Speaker | TED.com