All 141 DSNY recruits attend roll call at 6 a.m. during the first week of basic training at Floyd Bennett Field.
Photo: Thomas Pryor
The white elephant, as it is sometimes affectionately called, is the standard collection truck for the Sanitation Department. There are now 2,100 of him in the city’s fleet, all of which stand nearly 12 feet high and 33 feet long. The vehicle’s tailgate—the overhanging rear that juts out into the sky while the truck dumps its trash pile—is held in place by two locking pins, much like the hinge joints of a giant body. . Hydraulic fluid is pumped through a vein-like cylinder with a nervous system consisting of red, red, and black color-coded levers.
At 6:30 a.m. on a Wednesday in August, as the sun burns away the sea fog over Floyd Bennett Field, I’m standing alongside about 10 other people, staring at an elephant hopper. . — close slowly with a satisfying crank. The giant blades that compact the debris move in one sweeping motion. We watch with quiet concentration. To the sound of rusting metal, the man driving the truck, wearing black sunglasses and crew cuts, yelled, “Garbage in, what’s out?” In unison, they answer, “Juice!”
Garbage juice, a viscous concoction made from the contents of all trucks, and the habit of splattering out of the bag when it is compressed, is the work of the Ronald F. DiCarlo Training Academy at the Department of Health, where I informally attend. Main theme. During his two days at York’s Strongest, learn how to collect, sort and dispose of his 12,000 tons of garbage that the city produces each day. “In New York City, no one finishes a cup of coffee,” says our instructor, Sergio Serrano, a bushy-bearded DSNY veteran who seems knowledgeable. . “You know the taste of the moon, you hate the taste of the moon.”Pumpkin Spice Latte! ”
DSNY trainer Matt Prevosti (not me) drives a collection truck through an obstacle course.
Photo: Thomas Pryor
The cohort of trainees I am with mostly wear DSNY branded green shirts (reflective stripes are mandatory for visibility). The uniform had become a coveted streetwear item, and when it arrived that morning, I thought I would be able to get it. You’ll probably be issued a huge orange vest, hoping to yourself that you’re doing an important job.
My group is just one of 141 trainees attending Trash School this month. We meet at various stations (mostly trucks) around what was once the city’s first municipal airport. There is no actual trash in the practice field, so you have to imagine piles of garbage bags and dismantled furniture as you load the truck. Front-loading EZ packs to lift trash cans, salt spreaders to clear snow, recyclable split trucks, and the aforementioned White-His Elephant. Lynn Haynes, my fellow trainee, listens intently to every word of her instructor as she prepares for her turn: She finds spreaders the easiest Agreeing, she briefly discusses. When you get to the collection truck, someone pulls a lever and the tailgate goes up. Suddenly brackish water of a spit-like consistency began to pour out, and we backed away to avoid the splash. “Juice,” Haynes points to it. “Juice,” I repeat solemnly.
The DSNY civil service exam is typically offered every 4-5 years, but the last exam was held in 2015 after an early pandemic put it on hold. Garbage truck in 80 degree heat at 7am. Instructors told me that some of the trainees forgot to take it in full.
Making it to the Floyd Bennett field means you’re one of the lucky few to pass the test and get a call from the city in the latest hiring round. The last person recruited from the current class was his number 11,080 on the list. Basic training he does for a month and multiple times during the summer. Everything from defensive driving to attaching snow chains to your tires is included. I am allowed to do everything except drive a truck. This is something the chief of training is doing very firmly, trying and failing to change his mind for the next 48 hours.
Left: Principal Keith Mellis, Director of Safety and Training at DSNY. Right: Diagram explaining the correct tandem method for snowplows. Photo: Thomas Pryor.
Left: Principal Keith Mellis, Director of Safety and Training at DSNY. Right: Diagram explaining the correct tandem method for snowplows. Photo: Thomas Pryor.
Each of the other trainees can Driving the trucks are former corrections officers, teachers, photojournalists and technicians. The reason they got there was familiar. They worked too few hours, were paid too little, or were laid off. One told me that he had his son take the test with him and now they are both his DSNY employees. Another said he took exams in high school because his father was a worker at his DSNY. (More than a quarter of her trainees worked with families.) Haynes loves trash (specifically compost) and showed me a picture of her garden. She seems to be one of the few who got this job because she gave it to me. Striped peppers – while talking about the finer points of organic spoilage.
Work can be as bad as you can imagine. Instructors rattle off the most abominations encountered on the route – pig heads, whole lambs and ‘disco rice’, the deceptively appetizing name for maggots. But it’s also union work and a clear path to urban middle-class life: Starting salary is $40,622 for her, more than double his in five-and-a-half years of service. There is a pension, overtime and opportunities for growth. The trainer said the hardest part of the job was the schedule, and when she was young, the schedule was erratic and difficult to maintain with her family, but she was relieved that everyone was there. There seemed to be
A group of trainees learning how to use one of DSNY’s collection trucks.
Photo: Thomas Pryor
For decades, DSNY workers earned far less than the city’s cops and firefighters, worked in dangerous conditions, no sick days, and low pensions. However, in February 1968, his 10,000 uniformed workers in the ministry launched a wildcat strike led by union founder and president John Derury. Tens of thousands of pounds of trash accumulated in a week, and a big snowstorm nearly buried it all. Then-Mayor John Lindsey said that if the city complied with the sanitation worker’s demands, “a deal with the city would seldom be agreed on its merits. The only weapon we have is raw selfish power.” The union won, securing better wages and benefits. One of his striking workers, to thunderous applause, recalled his return to South He route in the Bronx.
More than half a century later, and with strikes drawing the line, a job in the department meant saving for a home, good insurance and a respected career. How long to start receiving — has become a kind of mantra. “I haven’t had a bad day yet,” Serrano grins during basketball training. “And 22 years later, I’m sipping a Mai Tai.”
The Garbage Truck Obstacle Course is the event everyone has been waiting for. Orange traffic cones have been installed around the site to mimic the tight streets of his circuit. A row of white elephants is prepared as a group of trainees stand clustered around the instructor. Another instructor and former mechanic, Derrick Rodas, prepares the class with a warning not to hit the cone, which he calls “my children and future Nobel laureates.”
I’m not allowed to drive a truck just because I don’t have a commercial driver’s license (very trivial in my opinion), so I worked for DSNY for 3 years and coached baseball. He is paired with Matt Prevosti on the obstacle course. in his spare time. We are high off the ground and every bump in the road bounces me back onto my seat Each truck has his two sets of wheels and brakes but only he can drive at a time is only one person. (Again, not me.) But Prevosti told me that both people could hit the brakes because trucks have blind spots. I asked him if he and his partner had used the brakes to play pranks. He pauses and says “No.” Then smile.
The rest of the track starts rolling around tarmac like the slowest go-kart race in the world. I see most people hit a cone he one or he two and weep quietly over the death of the Rodas Nobel laureate. As the training months progress, the obstacle course gets harder to better mimic the chaotic city streets. (They were carrying cars that were totaled for realism.) Navigation is difficult. Even Prevosti ends up knocking Korn down.
Next up is basket training, where you’ll learn how to pick up and empty a city-provided corner trash can. Operation seems pretty simple — pick up the basket, tilt it, hit it a few times to knock loose debris out, and pull the lever to close the hopper. I’ll pick one up. Even empty, it easily weighed 30 pounds.My heart was pounding and my arms were trembling. After leaning into the truck, I was instructed to drop it rather than put it down to reduce energy consumption. This meant almost crushing my toes. Now imagine an instructor doing it 400 times in one route. (I didn’t want to imagine.)
Next, I will explain what you should be careful about while working. A bent license plate cuts his knee and a truck’s towing hitch hurts his shin. We recommend avoiding steel toe boots. At one point, Serrano was brutally cut on a huge leg he got from a sharp object he hid in a garbage bag. I passed the pictures around on my phone.
Three DSNY trainees listening to instructions.
Photo: Thomas Pryor
Garbage picking is one of OSHA’s list of occupations with the highest number of work-related fatalities. There is the unpredictability of New York City streets where heavy equipment and motorists rampage. But there is also the slow deterioration that accompanies strenuous physical labor. Over the years, the body that has to lift and support all its weight – bending, twisting, carrying – wears down. Safety, perhaps more than garbage juice, is at the heart of training. An employee in the hygiene department he often works in pairs and our training emphasizes that partnership is a fundamental principle of the department. You are not paired with the same person all the time, but you are responsible for each other. The atmosphere in the field is surprisingly sweet and supportive for an industry that does.
On the last day of training, Rodas took me out for a ride on the salt spreader as a reward for successfully changing one truck tire (it was hard work, so no more). Clink through the back streets of Floyd Bennett. The sidewalks are left with tire tracks that look like the previous night’s drag race, passing kayakers on the glittering Jamaica Bay. We chat about mornings, work and weekends. Rodas returns once again to the concept of partnership, which includes the whole city, whether people are conscious of it or not. New York produces a lot of garbage and it all needs to be collected. (Mostly, Staten learned from the man he carpooled with from the Island.) There is an unspoken relationship in the work, he says. Then he goes back to joking. He suggests skipping the rest of the day and taking the truck to the beach. “No problem,” Rodas laughs, and for a split second thought he might be serious as he pointed his truck into the afternoon sun. Lots of trash there too.
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