DSCPhoto-1900sA Filthy History: When New Yorkers Lived Knee-Deep in Trash

Hunter Oatman-Stanford 

Collectors Weekly

Robin Nagle has spent much of her life fascinated by trash, and its oft-unseen impacts on our society, our environment, and our health. Nagle’s recent book, “Picking Up,” chronicles a decade working with the New York City Department of Sanitation, years spent in their offices, transfer stations, locker rooms, and of course, their garbage trucks. Interspersed with Nagle’s personal experiences are enlightening tidbits from the city’s long and difficult history of trash collection. As Nagle points out, we live in cities literally built on trash, yet the management of household waste remains one of the most invisible aspects of modern existence.

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In 2002, Nagle was first granted access to the department’s archives, and in 2003, she initiated the process of actually becoming a sanitation worker. After working closely with the department for years—riding routes, visiting garages, attending social events, and interviewing employees—Nagle was named the department’s only Anthropologist in Residence in 2006. “It’s the perfect title,” says Nagle, “the perfect framing of my relationship with them. It lets me propose weird things, and they just shake their heads and say, ‘It must be because she’s an anthropologist.’”