>> the 150th anniversary of the battle of gettyberg. on american history tv on c-span3. >> this week on "q&a," author and new york university professor robin nagle. her new book entitled "picking up: on the streets with the sanitation workers of new york city." >> robin nagle, why did you want to drive a garbage truck? >> i was curious about sanitation in new york. also around the world, but i was here. after some time hanging out with sanitation workers, getting interviews, classic anthropological interviews, i

realized i could not understand to be depths i wanted unless i was qualified to do the job. i was hired. the first time i drove the truck by myself, i have to say, it was terrifying and exhilarating. i was one of the most powerful vehicles on the road. not the biggest truck. but i was the one no one wanted to be stuck behind or next to. >> where did this interest come from? >> i was 11 or 10 as my dad took me camping in the adirondack mountains. this is when the questions of environmental awareness and integrity were really part of the national conversation for the first time. so, dad took me into the forest. we were hiking for a long time in the pristine wilderness areas

behind our lean-to is a dump where campers have been too lazy to take out what they have brought in. my childhood idealism, my sense of how justice and new world works and how adults were responsible -- my sense of the order of the world came crashing down. this atrocity could be left behind a lean-to in this utopian forest, one of the last great wilderness areas in the eastern part of the united states, even then. and the question of the moment was, who on earth did they think would clean up after them? who was going to carry all the stuff out? and the possibility of just letting go of stuff and assuming someone would then pick it up, that question would succeed and it stayed with me from that moment.

i guess i could say it composted a little bit. [laughter] it grew into the larger questions that pervade the book. >> where does trash, garbage in manhattan, go? how far away from the city? >> trash from manhattan does not go that far away. it crosses the hudson river to a waste energy facility near newark. it becomes energy that is sold to the communities adjacent to the facility. if you want to know about trash from other parts of new york, other boroughs, it does go far afield. some goes by train. some goes by truck. it goes to pennsylvania, ohio, virginia. one of the carolinas. it goes very far away. >> why? >> we have nowhere to put it inside our own border. inside the border of the city.

it had to go somewhere. it has to go somewhere. the somewhere had to be outside new york. >> why do the other states allow the garbage to come to them? >> they make a lot of money. we have to pay a hefty cost for transportation, but in terms of the host community, they charge a fee. in fact, some communities, the money has made a real difference in the economic base of the town. i know stories of towns in pennsylvania where because of the landfill they agreed to open and the trash they were paid to receive, they were able to buy new ire trucks and higher more teachers and paint the town hall. it is a little bit of a doubles bargain, because you are taking this stuff that is not the commodity of choice if you are looking for a solid engine for your town, but it does have some upside.

>> so, i got up this morning, early. i went out on the street. i took pictures of garbage bags. and i want to show you what i found. for instance, there is one. what are we looking at? >> sausage bags. body bags. that is another name for them. those are 120-gallon garbage bags outside complexes. that is like a big apartment complex right there. because of what is behind that, i am going to say that is commercial waste. i do not know if that is residential. >> it is near 76th street and broadway. that is an avis rental car right behind them. >> yes. >> having read your book and having heard you talk about mongo, i wonder if those mattresses would we mongo.

>> mongo probably -- those mattresses would not be mongo because of the bedbug scare. mongo is an object put out for the trash, put out for collection, but someone decides should be rescued. you can think of it like object adoption. >> when you are on the garbage truck, did you pick up things -- i will show you some baskets, also, that are on the streets. is that the responsibility of the sanitation workers? there is one right there. >> yes. this is an interesting dilemma. not dilemma. just different city functions are divided bureaucratically. i would not have picked up that basket because that has the parks symbol on it. there are people in the parks department who process garbage inside the parks. they would have collected that. that one, i would have picked

that up. that is the city basket on the streets. it's a different set of workers for the parks. i would have to see the exact corner to know the jurisdiction or why one the parks one is right next to the regular basket the recycling basket. this is a new initiative to try to help people follow recycling protocols while they're on the street. instead of throwing your empty water bottle into the garbage, you can now drop it into the bottles and cans only bin. >> why should someone watching this in california or colorado or texas care about this book? >> the actual challenge of waste management is a national concern. and simultaneously a very local concern.

any city, any town, any municipality, you have to answer the question, who is picking up the trash and where does it go you go -- where does it go? it is not so different than other parts of the world. parts, laborers, organizing routes. chicago just went through a radical transformation and how they organize the collection routes for the city. it used to be based on an award situation. now they set up a grid. they had to do this with a lot of consultation. it sounds successful, but those problems -- they are hardly unique to new york. >> where did you grow up? >> saranac lake, new york. >> how did you get to new york city? >> that was the nearest big city.

i came here to be an actor originally. >> what year? >> 1981. >> why did you want to be an actor? >> i had done theater in my hometown and really liked it. i did not realize that theater in new york was a different thing. i did not realize that my talents would be better used backstage. in this city, you know, i was a young woman, one of hundreds and hundreds of any cattle casting call. i do not think i had any talent that elevated me above anyone in that field. >> but you have a lot of education. go through the many degrees you have. >> i flunked out or walked away from college a couple times, two or three times until i settled in to finish my ba at nyu and was given a scholarship to

columbia for my graduate work in anthropology. i can say the degrees if you want -- >> what kind of degrees? >> ba, ma, phd. >> in one? >> anthropology. all of it. >> what is anthropology? >> anthropology -- i'm so glad you asked that question. one of my missions of life is to help everyone understand how amazing anthropology is as an umbrella to understand a frame by which you can understand all kinds of questions about who are we as human beings. it includes archaeology, linguistics, physical anthropology which looks at things like how did we evolve? molecular anthropology where it looks at things like mitochondrial dna, how it changed over centuries and we can trace that back to a

potential ancestor, that famous mitochondrial eve from central africa. i'm forgetting one of the four fields. my professors would be very upset with me. inside of anthropology if you have a question about how does the religious structure or tradition work or how was kinship understood in different parts of the world, or howl is an economic system and forcing some forms of power and discounting other forms of power and how is that like a different era in time or different people in a different part of the world it's both a way of learning about celebrating difference, and to learn -- a way to learn about and celebrate commonality. to me, it is where you can have the most fun really questioning where our species and all of its glory and ridiculousness, i really, really like being an

anthropologist. >> what do you do full-time? >> i direct a masters program at new york university. it's an interdisciplinary masters program. i teach. and there is a field i'm trying to kickstart call discard studies. the book was one project. there are three others we have got rolling. we are organizing archives of the department. when i started my research, it was very hard to find records in one place that was well organized. there are a few. but i want my successors and anyone with questions like mine to have a place to find information and details and historic data and whatnot. so, that is the archive project. then there is the oral history project. that is rolling forward. the next jump will be in the fall. and then there is the medium,

which i'm trying to have someone help me with the paperwork for the not-for-profit corporation so the museum can take place. >> in sanitation workers, are we talking about manhattan or all of the boroughs of new york? >> all five boroughs. >> how many? >> there are approximately 7000 uniformed sanitation personnel and 2000 civilians. roughly 9000 and change. there are 196 women across all ranks. so, very few. >> how many women apply? >> i don't know. when the announcement goes out for tests, there will be between 75,000 and 80,000 that apply. i have not asked how many are female.

i would be the only woman or one of two present. i came back in at 2005. i did not have to start the process over. i had to brush up on the truck a little bit. >> would you be accepted no matter what? >> oh, no. i had to take the test is like anyone else. there was no secret back door for me. frankly, there would be no secret backdoor for you or anyone else. that is one way the civil service has a great deal of integrity. you clear a mountain of medical tests send verifications that you have the physical competence, including psychological tests emma and then you learn to drive the truck and you passed the road test. if you successfully walked past

all of those markers and are certified, verify, proven to be of the competence they require, then you can be hired. but no one will help you cheat any piece of that along the way. >> do they all belong? >> the uniform men's association it is still the men's association. that is a sore point among some of the women. yes, you belong. once you are promoted to the level of supervisor and superintendent, you belong to a different union. >> i will just use the word -- how long can you be a garbage man? tell me -- >> sanitation worker. san man. >> what about san woman? >> i would rather you said san

man as a gloss for the job rather than garbage man. >> when you pick up garbage and you throw it in a truck. how long? >> as far as the shift or the career? >> for career. >> if you want the pension, you have to stay for 22 years. >> if you do not go the supervisor role or something like that, how much money can you make after 22 years? >> if you are behind the truck, and you are on plow in the winter -- if you have a good year with overtime, you are going to make in the $90,000 range. >> what kind of benefits do you get? >> there are excellent benefits. sanitation workers get better benefits than i do through new york university.

medical coverage for yourself and your family. i do not remember the exact details, but it is tremendous security if you want to start a family, if you want to make sure your kids -- maybe they are special needs. they take care of all that. >> when you are going through the testing and, what was the top as part? >> i became very quickly impatient with the number of times i had to go through these different medical procedures and the number of forms. i'm not great with paperwork, although i'm in administrator at nyu. i should not say that. it almost felt like they were intentionally trying to wear us down so we would walk away and reduce the number of people they had to process. that's not true. that's not what they were doing it all. for me, personally was -- the worst part was keeping track of the forms and sitting through the morning filling out more forms.

the test was not difficult. the physical test was -- it was demanding, but it was not unreasonably demanding. >> what did you have to do? >> you work against time on a series of tasks. with them involves baskets. >> what baskets? >> the baskets that you should pictures off. you are required to drag them into the back of a truck. you are required to do that from different distances and around different obstacles. some you could drag. others you had to carry. the other component was just bags, like the pictures you showed. moving them similarly around different obstacles, dragging them into this imaginary truck. >> what is the most poundage you had to pick up yourself alone? >> in the test, you mean? >> when you became a garbage --

excuse me, san worker? >> it's a tough habit to break. i picked up my share, but i don't know -- >> at any one time, what is the most weight you have to pick up? >> whatever that is -- >> no, i understand. but you say those bags are 120 pounds. is that the most poundage you have to pick up? >> no, your partner would help you do that unless you want to really wreck your back. some men do that. some women as well. they have a lot of muscle. they will take some pride in hefting one of those bags themselves. as far as the weight limit, if someone puts a bag that is 600 pounds that is legal household trash, we have to figure out how to get it back in the truck.

there's is not a weight limit per se. >> what was your initial salary and benefits? >> $31,000? >> how long does that last? >> you reach top pay within five years. i don't remember. it changes. >> how long did you work as a san person? >> in title? several months. >> everyday? >> yes. i was broom qualified. i was trained how to operate one of those. you do not drive those. i am very proud. i also worked behind the truck and plowed snow. i felt like i got a pretty good sense of the job overall, which was part of my goal.

>> late in your book you talk about someone named goldsmith, who we actually interviewed a couple years ago, in 2011. steve goldsmith. he used to be the mayor of indianapolis, the mayor of new york. let's watch a clip of that. you can put it in context. >> we had the sixth largest snow in new york city. lots of things went wrong. we learn from our mistakes. >> why did it go wrong? >> there are a lot of lessons, some are about snow. some are generalized. there is the very deliberate way you approach a job. let's say snowplows. you execute that the same way. for snow, the timing is extraordinary. the amount is extraordinary. the wind is extraordinary. fill in the blank. what we found this time was we have to have really up-to-date second by second management data.

the reports were off a little bit. there were mistakes made by others. 1000 buses gor stuck. you look at that, and you declare an emergency, but the people who met made a good-faith decision that turned out not to be right. the point of the story is it is easy to do monday morning quarterbacking here. i think we realized real-time management data coupled with a little bit more in terms of delivery systems would have helped a lot. >> what would you add? >> it seems to me he is 100% correct in his assessment of that storm. i would add there has been a trend in managerial style within city government over the past, i don't know, 15 or 20 years, to

make centralized decisions on behalf of the entire city for that particular agency. for example in sanitation, when the plows are first deployed, the plow is always kept to the right. there will come a moment when you should be when your plow to the left because the conditions have changed and how much you have already cleared. deploying salt, using salt on the streets. that is a decision that is key at some moment in storm response. those decisions are made centrally. but the way that the storm is slanted toward staten island may be very different from the way it is being felt in the northern bronx. i am going to bet this is the same for other key agencies that have a similar style. i think it would strengthen the department to trust the acumen and the experience of the field officers who maybe are not ready

to start salting or want to start salting for the central agency is ready to declare time. in other words, when you have a system of promotion and you're confident the people you have promoted into managerial positions are skilled and competent, give the men the power to call the shots at the local level in ways that are immediately relevant to that district rather than have all of that central, especially when you have information lag. we will never face a storm like that again, not because we won't have a storm that big. i'm sure we will. but because there are now in place very sophisticated data gathering mechanisms like gps in all the trucks for a start, that will help the department understand and respond in a much more nimble way than was

possible. i think that can make a significant difference. >> what time did you have to be at your truck? when did you get your assignments? go on from there. >> you have to be at work -- the day starts at 6 a.m., meaning you are in uniform and ready to go. most people will arrive at 5:20 or 5:30. enough time to have a cup of coffee and not rush. 6:00 roll call, you will get your assignment. here are your assignments, your special conditions that are different from a normal day. then you claim your truck. then you are on the street. depending on your garage location, your route may start a few blocks away were many miles away. for example, the manhattan eight

district in new york, the east side from 59th street to 90 street, central park east to the east river. the garage for that district is at 215th street up at the top of the islands, and if you are trying to get from there to the start of your routes -- at 6:00 it is not quite rush-hour traffic, but it is picking up, so to speak. it can take you an hour to get to 59th street. then you are against the clock because your route must he cleaned by the end of your shift. that route is the heaviest in all of new york does it has the most high density housing in the whole city. so, it has the heaviest route. >> when is your route over? >> it is an eight hour day, so depending on where your garages, there is a cutoff in which you

are allowed to write back to the garage to shower and change. or if your route is clean, you will drive the truck to new jersey to dump it and bring it back. that by itself though can take hours. what is more common is you fill the truck and it takes your shift, and then the next shift we call this running relays. you drive the truck to the dump and come back empty. that is a whole shift. >> i checked those pictures earlier -- i took those pictures earlier somewhere around 5:45 in the morning. by 8:40 those were gone. is that normal? or could you have those garbage bags stacked up for the rest of the day until 4:00 in the afternoon?

>> if they are stopped up until 4:00, there is something wrong in the garage. they want the garbage up fast. that means the route was not cleaned, and that is a problem. one of the fascinating things for me is how that problem -- if that garbage were still in front of the building at 5:00 in the afternoon -- that ripples across the whole world. people who had been scheduled for one place, moving somewhere else so you can get yet at third person to be picking up the slack for whoever didn't pick up that load. it is both mundane -- they are on the street every day -- and yet there is military precision to it that is startling. there is a problem if that garbage is still on the street at 4:00. >> was there during the day time a time when you said, ecch, i'm beat. >> yes.

yes. >> when? >> when would that be? >> there was a time when i would feel that in my bones. it was hard. you get a 15-minute break at 8:00. i would be very ready for the break. for me, the other fatigue was when you just finished cleaning your streets and there is no garbage anywhere in sight and you turned the corner, go down the next street, and there is all the garbage again because it is the next part of your route. i felt like sisyphus. instead of the rock and the hill, it was the bag and the bag and the bag and it was never going to end. >> what was the strangest thing people would say to you during that time?

>> the strangest thing? >> in other words, would people say, are you crazy? why would you want to do this? >> yes. when i was working with sanitation people, but not on the job formally, walking the routes with them, anyone who would be walking by with think i was a sanitation worker, but there were three of us. that was weird. one of them would stop me and say, oh, i know. you are an undercover journalist, aren't you? >> i would say, no, that is not it. but i was not going to go into the whole situation. if i was driving the truck without wearing a uniform, that raised eyebrows. once i was on the job, i was just another city worker on-the- job. >> you talk more than once in your book about this invisible

thing. explain that. >> when you put on a uniform for a job that is a maintenance job and this is true if you're building janitor sanitation worker -- you are subsumed by the roll to the point where it is almost like you are just a part of the background. i am going to say almost like a machine. the general world gets to overlook you. really just not see you. i have called this -- it is like a romulan cloaking device. those people who follow star trek. geeks will recognize that reference. or harry potter's cloak of invisibility. which is both trust rating and an interesting privilege. when i am wearing a sanitation worker's uniform, i can observe people in ways that they do not realize i'm observing them. i am not part of their world at all.

>> even though you were a woman? >> i had my hat on and my hair up. no, it's just the uniform. once in a while, people would be startled because i'm too old, i'm a girl, i was wearing glasses. i do not look the part. although that points to the stereotype. there are plenty of people on this job, if you saw them in their street clothes, you would never think in a million years, oh, you are a sanitation worker. there is this theory that we are all supposed to talk like this and have a cigarette hanging out of our mouth and a three-day beard. that is a cartoon. >> do the guys -- i assume mostly guys -- smoke anymore? >> yes, sometimes i would work with guys who would smoke while loading up truck, but you are not technically allowed to smoke inside a city facility. >> you have a kid though? >> he is 15.

>> what does he think of mom as a san worker? >> his experience with the city has always been intertwined with my relationship with sanitation. when he goes out on a cold day, he is wearing a dsny sweatshirt. it is part of the uniform. and he is very proud. >> has he ever ridden with you on the truck? >> no. he has climbed around the equipment when it was stationary. he has certainly been to the garages. >> how many garages are there in new york? >> there are 59 sanitation districts. so, there are 59 garages. but there are many more

facilities than just garages. >> how many more trucks? >> i want to say 2600, but i'm pulling that number out of my head. it might be wrong. >> it has to be close to 7000 sanitation workers -- >> two per truck. so, a cutdown is what we took our road test on. it is sort of like a truck. the spreader. those are the big trucks that salt up the back on a snowy day. the loader -- that is the big thing with the bucket. that is a fascinating machine. it is bent in the middle. learning how to operate that with skill -- i was not trained on that and it is probably good for the community that i was not.

>> we have been through this business of one basket for recycled items in another basket for this and that. what happens to all of that? >> it goes to facilities that then turn it into its next life. glass can be perpetually recycled. some plastic is down cycled. >> what does that mean? >> the plastic will not have the same strength of the original plastic. that is one of the challenges. eventually you can't turn it into something else because the molecular chemical makeup just enough hold -- it's just not useful. new york has recently rolled out some very exciting new recycling initiatives. there is an electronics, and e waste initiative that has just been announced. there is a house and restaurant food scrap composting program that is being pilots tested now in a couple of places.

we are jumping into the recycling side of it with both feet. >> what happens to just the garbage garbage? >> the garbage garbage is landfill or waste energy facilities. >> what does that mean? >> it is burned to make energy. it is like an incinerator. a classic incinerator would just burn it. now that is a fuel source. it is called the biofuel. it is not without controversy. i think there is one more function of that material before it dies in a landfill. >> going back through your day again -- how do you get into overtime, and you are suggesting in the book that when he went from three people on a truck to

two, that meant more money for the two -- that meant more money for the two, but how much longer do you have to work to get that over time? >> you are eligible -- it is called make the truck. you are eligible to make the truck as soon as you are hired. depending on where you're signed, you are more or less likely to have that opportunity. it is decided by seniority. if we are both sanitation workers, and i have been working on for 15 years and you have for five years, i get the first pick. >> you have a glossary in the back. at we could talk about that -- so many of them. what is bad time? >> let's say there is disciplinary action against me and i have been suspended for a month. when i'm ready to retire, that month is bad time and i have to stay to make up for it.

>> what is bail the truck? >> that is when it is pretty full, but you think you can get more on -- this is the front of the truck and this is the back. there is a law, any star in the morning, the wall is here. as the wall moves through the cow of the truck. you take the hopper blade, and you squash it together to combat compact that trash even more. that is bailing the truck. >> a woman lost her life to because someone did not know she was up on top of the truck. what was that story? >> she was working on the truck that serves buildings were the trash is put out in big containers. when it is driving, the arms are up here. when it is activated, the arms go down and they slide into the

slots on the containers. that is where the opening is in the garbage all sent from the top. ava -- the garbage will jam some of the mechanisms. she had climbed to the top of the truck to free the mechanisms. her partner did not know that she was back there. she did not see it coming. it caught her in the head. that was that. >> when was this? >> i want to say 2003. that might be wrong. >> did you know her? >> i did not. >> what about other mishaps, injuries? >> there are countless opportunities for things to go wrong. do you want specific stories, or >> yes. >> there was a tragedy in 1996 where a man named michael hanley

who had 23 years on the job, was almost at the end of his route in brooklyn, and they were at a stoplight the pictures that you showed. they were tossing the bags in the back of the truck, like he had done for 23 years. they cycled the hopper, meaning that blade that pushes it into the body of the truck. the blade caught one of the bags and inside the bag, unbeknownst to anyone was a jug of hydrochloric acid. it caught that jug, broke it open, and a geyser caught him full on. it killed him. his partner was awfully badly injured trying to help them. the volunteer fire department that rushed to his aid were also injured. they had to decontaminate the truck, the ambulance, the firehouse, the emergency room where they took him.

he left behind a family, and yes, that was the first big sanitation funeral. >> there were like 2000 people? >> yes. you know when there is a police funeral. it is a sea of blue with white gloves. this was a sea of green with white gloves. it was such an unimaginably far away to die. and doing a job is seemingly straightforward as loading garbage into the back of a truck, you do not think it would cost a man his life. but it does. >> more from the glossary. calling it out? >> how much trash is left on the curb before it is picked up. >> deadweight partners? >> i have to do your work and my work. >> what is clean garbage?

>> it is well packaged. not with a bow around it. but everything is tight. it is probably not going to burst open before i get into the truck. >> cut the load? >> cut the load is when the truck is not full, but you're going to stop filling up. >> death march? >> a route that is long or very heavy. >> disco rice? >> maggots. >> where does that come from? >> not to gross you out, but have you ever looked into the bottom of a garbage can swarming with maggots? they are swarming. it looks like they're dancing. it's really disgusting. >> what's the worst thing you have ever seen? >> maggots. i can do maggots. other people do not have a problem with maggots. i can't do maggots. >> when it is raining, what do you do?

>> you get wet. [laughter] >> it slows the process down? and of course, snow. >> when it rains, it is going to be heavier. those bags get waterlogged. you can count on heavier weights, and you can count on, if you mind the rain, you count on a dreary day. >> did you ever have an accident? >> i did not. >> did you come close? >> yes. if my partner had not been wide awake, i would have sideswiped one night i was having a little trouble. he saved me from sideswiping traffic signs, vehicles, the side of the highway. yes. >> how often are there accidents? tre areendebenders --

there are moving vehicles around all the time. i do not know the specifics, but i'm sure it happens a lot. in terms of active dash of accidents where people are injured, it does not happen every month. >> you had some statistics in your book. i'm sure you remember them. here it is. the makeup -- one fourth african american, 1/5 latinos, one half white, and there is irish and italian. what is the background on what kind of folks come to this kind of job? >> historically, irish, italian, and african american workers have the backbones of the departments. hispanic workers also, but a little more recently. and i'm talking the second half of the 20th century.

the irish and the italians, that goes back to old divisions in the city demographics and ethnic i do not want to say warfare, but conflict sometimes. if you ask what kind of person takes the job? >> yes. african-americans, latinos -- >> do you mean what draws them to the job? >> they have a certain feeling about what they do. and you talk about -- >> meaning that they work for the department of sanitation? yes. that is a different set of issue you have touched on. they need a good job. and who doesn't? sanitation workers are required to have a high school diploma or its equivalent. there is talk right now of increasing the educational requirement, which i think is an interesting idea, but that is

very much in its larval stage at this point. if you have a high school diploma and you want a solid job that will let you may be raise a family, your opportunities in this day and age are very slim. sanitation, like some other civil service jobs in new york, is considered a brass ring if you get the job. because you do get after time a decent salary. you do get good benefits. you have job security. you have a union that stands behind you. and you can do life, whether you want to stay behind the truck or be promoted up through the ranks. you can also learn a host of fascinating skills area it is a golden opportunity. i do not know that many sanitation people who yearn to be san men when they grow up, like some kids want to be a cop or a firefighter.

but i know many who are on the job who would not take it for anything. and they will tell you that they have built a really wonderful life. and they have friendships. i should say -- i want to add this, because i think it is important. the camaraderie that i see on the job is like nothing i have seen in other fields. partly because, especially on the uniform side, when you share the burden, literally, picking up the trash, and you know there is a stigma and people, if they find out what you do for a living, they tend to think poorly about it. or you can brag about it, knowing that people will not understand it. you shared that. after time, it is like you are in the trenches together on this war on crime. >> what is gold chain garbage? >> gold chain garage? >> [laughter] yes.

>> that is slang for a garage that is mostly italian-american. most of the workers are of italian heritage. >> in that garage? >> yes. >> how do the races get along? >> in some cases quite well. in others there is tension. >> where is the tension? >> there are some in the city who feel that certain races have more access to places of power. some feel that that is unjust. it varies from district to district, garage to garage. i thought about organizing the book according to every district. >> have you been to every garage? >> i have not. >> what did you have to do to get the sanitation department to let you in? >> what were the restrictions on you?

>> you mean as an anthropologist? >> how did that happen? >> i wrote a letter, and old- fashioned letter, and i followed up with phone calls. it took two years. by then, the giuliani administration was not in charge. it was the bloomberg administration. he brought back john doherty, who had been the commissioner for several years, have retired, and bloomberg invited him back for his old job. the only commissioner to serve twice and the only commissioner to come up the ranks from the truck to serve twice. the longest-serving commissioner in department history. and john doherty brought back vito turso, and i think of them as a team. vito promoted people that i knew then.

they were my hooks. if you have a hook, that is some one who can speak on your behalf and help you solve a problem. my hooks, the artist in residence and a former policy analyst with sanitation, and they talked to him on my behalf. that was the wedge. that was the foot in the door. i think that vito recognized that was not crazy. and certainly i proved my stubbornness because it had been two years. he helped the artist in residence with some of her projects. from a bureaucratic perspective, you would never approve them. but he has a much deeper understanding of the possible implications and how you have to let creative thinkers have room to do their work. he was more open-minded than his predecessor.

>> i saw a documentary in the last year of new yorkers who make a living running around the city and getting bottles. what is the interaction between those folks -- they going into the trash cans and all that stuff -- and some of the make real money. what do the sanitation workers think of them? >> it varies. sometimes they are a nuisance because they are in the way of emptying that basket. sometimes it is like, wow, look at that poor fellow who for the grace of someone, perhaps, could go i. and sometimes they do not pay much attention. >> how often do you find a college degree among the san workers, that have a college

degree besides yourself? >> plenty. the economy is not friendly right now for people who need jobs. you are not required to have a college degree, that i know people with masters degrees. at some, that is where they stay. others get promoted up. >> what about the relationship between people who have lots of degrees like that and people who don't? is there tension there? >> i haven't seen it. perhaps it exists. you learn very quickly, the measure of success is how well you do the job on the street. if you have a phd or a ged, it is irrelevant if you can't do the job well or if you can do the job well. the respect you get from your coworkers is how well you do the job. again, your degree level is irrelevant if you are the kind of worker who will stand up for your partner no matter what or the kind of worker who will rat

out your partner. your education is not factoring in those kinds of situations. people with college degrees perhaps -- and i do not know that this is true, but perhaps when it comes to the test for promotion, since they have been through college, maybe they have better study skills and maybe therefore they have a little bit of an edge in getting promoted. but i would have to look at the numbers on that. i would have to sit down and do the analysis of degrees versus promotional paths. >> what city, town, a urban area in the country known to have the best sanitation systems? >> new york, of course. i'm sorry. define best. >> for the most modern, the most efficient system, you would go to x. >> i don't know. i would have to press you a little further to define

efficient. we just expanded the recycling program, as i said. recycling has structural requirements that can work against efficiency. like, do you need extra trucks on the street? san francisco is famous for claiming they have between a 75% and 80% recycling rate. i went to see the numbers that go into that statistic and compare them to any other city and see how they count. you can say 80%, but do they include commercial waste and ways that we don't? they are picked up by a private company. so, they have different constraints. i'm going to say fewer constraints. it is different constraints. >> how many people apply and how many people are accepted in the sanitation department?

>> after the physical test, the number will be narrowed down to roughly 4000. it varies from one job cycle to another. the department has learned over time how to anticipate exactly how many people it needs to get through the system and what percentage attrition to anticipate so that they will know by the end of the day if they have to fill 300 job slots, then they have to have a certain number getting through the previous barriers. or previous qualifications. >> fsg published this book. how did you do it? >> how did i get -- >> did you say you wanted to write a book about garbage? >> my agent sent the proposal to, i don't know, 40 different

houses. all of them said, wow, what an interesting book. we are not going to publish it. then i took the job. i was on the job or little while. i rewrote the proposal to incorporate what i had learned as a sanitation worker. we went to four or five houses who had already turned me down. fsg this time, a different editor, different crew, they said all right, we will take a shot at this. >> how popular has the glossary been? >> i have gotten a lot of attention. if there is a review of the book on a sidebar, it is the glossary. >> one more before we close. >> i am not going to remember them all. >> you will remember this. a rocket. >> oh, yes. if you are given some disciplinary action, you just got a rocket.

>> salad wagon. >> collection truck. also fruit wagon. >> who names these? >> it's the way that language evolves. >> short dump. >> a short dump is when you dump that an interim location. >> a tiffany. >> a tiffany is when you have done such a perfect job cleaning that street or putting the cans back on the curb that it is -- it is very well done. well cleaned. >> urban whitefish. >> a condom floating in the river. >> truck money. >> the differential money that sanitation workers get.

>> a tissue. >> let's say you and i worked together, but you get injured. let's say you can work, but you cannot be lifting garbage. you will be put on a desk job. that is a tissue. >> what is next? >> i want to work on another book that focuses on garbage- related themes, but also looks at how we deal with trash and how that plays with the questions of memory and how we understand history. >> the removal of garbage costs new york city how much every year? >> the budget for this fiscal year -- i think it was $1.2 billion or $1.3 billion. >> robin nagle, author of "picking up," we thank you. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

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