Blake

Blake Stone
Professor Barto
ENG. 099
June, 21, 2012

Trash is everywhere you look up, down, left and right. Who job is to clean it up? The garbage man his assignment it to get trash, sounds easy right. But being a garbage man is one of the nastiest and dangerous jobs out there. It is a job I would never take, because of the disease you can encounter with all the trash, and all the lifting can cause injury or serious strains to the body. One would think being a garbage would be simple and easy not dangerous and hard. The seemingly mundane job of "garbage man" is a surprisingly hazardous one, in part due to risks associated with operating heavy lifting and compacting equipment, but mostly because of the way they ride from house to house clinging to the sides and back of their garbage trucks. They often perch precariously on narrow ledges and running boards just one little slip and they can easily be caught under the wheels of the truck and/or hit by passing traffic. Garbage man are exposed to many deathly hazards, such as chemical burns, disposable needles, broken glass, falling objects from overloaded containers, diseases that may accompany solid waste, asbestos, dog attacks, pests ants, flies, cockroaches, rodents, dust, inclement weather, traffic, and foul odors.
In the United States, waste collection work is one of the most dangerous jobs. Sources vary as to what position within the top ten most dangerous jobs. Garbage men have to perform their strenuous work even in the hot summer weather, and there's also the risk of confronting hazardous waste - even the explosive chemicals discarded from meth labs. And the eighth most-hazardous profession in America is industrial machinist. It's not just the sparks flying from a welding torch; the automated machinery has been known to catch the loose clothing of a worker, and then crush them to death. For some people, going in to work is a matter of life and death. Another reason this job is dangerous is the death rate for garbage men is higher than ever. The fatality rate: 29.8 per 100,000 workers; 26 totals. This stats show that this job is not safe or easy. You would think any person in the world would be able to be a garbage man but no you need heart, courage, and skills, and a little bit of luck. Although they may not occur to many as an obvious danger for garbage collectors, vehicle collisions are the most common cause of injury. Garbage collectors often hang suspended from the sides or rear of garbage trucks, walk in and out of traffic regularly, and ride outside the truck from stop to stop to cut down on the time required to climb into and out of the cab repeatedly. The heavy equipment used in the course of garbage collection, including sanitation trucks, compactors and front-end loaders, are all inherently dangerous and can cause serious injury or death if used improperly. Finally, after all that does picking up trash sound easy now? Ss you see being a garbage man is not easy as it sounds you could get a deadly disease or attacked by animals or even death. So this is a job I would never take, even though it pays well for picking up trash.