I Went to Trash School

An education in “juice.”

- By Clio Chang

The white elephant, as it is sometimes affectionately called, is the Department of Sanitation’s standard collection truck. There are 2,100 of them in the city fleet, all standing nearly 12 feet high and 33 feet long. At 6:30 a.m. on an August Wednesday, as the sun burns off the ocean mist at Floyd Bennett Field, I am standing alongside a dozen or so other people staring into the elephant’s hopper—the familiar gaping maw into which workers feed trash bags— as it slowly closes shut with a satisfying clank. The heavy blade that compacts the trash descends in a single sweeping motion. We watch with quiet concentration. Over the sound of the rusty metal, the man operating the truck, who wears black sunglasses and has a crew cut, yells, “Garbage goes in, then what goes out?” In unison, we respond: “Juice!”

Trash juice, the viscous concoction brewed by the contents of every truck—and its habit of spraying out of bags as they’re compacted—is a major theme at Sanitation’s Ronald F. DiCarlo Training Academy, where I have unofficially joined New York’s Strongest for two days to learn how to collect, sort, and dump the 12,000 tons of trash the city produces each day. “In New York City, nobody finishes a cup of coffee,” our instructor, Sergio Serrano, a spirited DSNY veteran, tells us. “You will know the flavor of the month and come to hate the flavor of the month.” To make the point, Joe O’Hare, another instructor, shouts, “Pumpkin-spice latte!”