by Alexis Petru
Published on November 14th, 2011

On a chilly November morning in San Francisco, two garbage collectors in bright yellow reflective jackets trudge up and down the city’s famous Filbert Street Steps, a stairway with 400-odd steps on one of the city’s steepest streets.

Many apartments on Filbert Street are only accessible by the stairs, so this is where residents set out their garbage and recycling carts. Working in the early morning twilight, the men locate each cart and then empty the recyclables into a bin they’re carrying and the trash into a burlap sack.

When they’ve serviced each cart, they head back to the truck, hauling the bin and burlap sack, and pour out the materials into the truck’s separate compartments for garbage and recyclables. Though it requires heavy lifting, this method of consolidating materials from a number of carts saves time, preventing the pair from making multiple trips back to the truck to empty each cart individually.

It’s 7 a.m., but Recology drivers Dave Franzoa and Fernando Gonzalez have been out on their route for three hours already.

The men are just two of the over 125,000 garbage and recycling collectors in the U.S. – an occupation that may not reap many accolades, but is essential to keeping our cities clean and – especially as recycling programs become more widespread – protecting our environment.

You may not be familiar with the garbage drivers that work in your neighborhood: You set out your garbage and recyclables weekly and – almost as if by magic – the carts are picked up, often while you’re still asleep or when you’re at work or school.

In fact, there is a good chance you’ve never even thought about who picks up the material you leave at the curb – until your garbage pick-up is missed or you’re stuck behind a garbage truck when you’re late for an appointment.

Just who exactly are these individuals who visit our homes weekly and whisk away our disposables? Earth911 accompanied Franzoa and Gonzalez on their route in San Francisco’s North Beach and Telegraph Hill neighborhoods to get a behind-the-scenes look at a garbage driver’s daily routine – to show you the obstacles a driver faces and highlight the skills needed to perform this very demanding and very dirty job.

The garbage man geneBack on the route, Franzoa leaps into the truck, while Gonzalez hops onto the back of the truck, holding onto a railing, and the truck lurches forward.

“Not bad for a 51-year-old, huh?” he says, grinning.

Franzoa has spent 26 years as a garbage man in San Francisco, working for Recology, the solid waste and recycling company that has helped the City by the Bay achieve its impressive 77-percent recycling rate.

READ: San Fran Named Greenest City in North America

Waste management is in Franzoa’s blood. His great-grandfather worked in the industry in the early 20thcentury, after immigrating to San Francisco from northern Italy. Franzoa’s grandpa was also a garbage collector, but the garbage man gene skipped a generation – Franzoa’s dad was a butcher – until Franzoa started working for Recology, then called Norcal Waste, in the 1980s.

He started working his current route in the city’s northeastern neighborhoods, with breathtaking views of the bay and its bridges, 18 years ago. Today, his route partner of 12 years, José Morales, is home with a cold, so Franzoa is working with Gonzalez, a “floater” who rotates jobs in the company, filling in where he is needed.

“Most routes have one driver,” he says. “But this is such a dangerous route, so they kept it a two-man route.”

Read more from this article at: http://earth911.com/news/2011/11/14/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-recycling-driver-recology-san-francisco/