I was about 10 years old on a camping trip with my dad in the Adirondack Mountains, a wilderness area in the northern part of New York State. It was a beautiful day. The forest was sparkling. The sun made the leaves glow like stained glass, and if it weren't for the path we were following, we could almost pretend we were the first human beings to ever walk that land.
Imala sam 10 godina kada sam otišla na kampiranje s tatom u planine Adirondack, divlje područje u sjevernom djelu države New York. Bio je to prekrasan dan. Šuma je blistala. Sunce je činilo da lišće svijetli kao ukrašeno staklo, i da nije bilo staze koju smo slijedlili, gotovo smo se mogli pretvarati da smo prva ljudska bića koja su hodala tom zemljom.
We got to our campsite. It was a lean-to on a bluff looking over a crystal, beautiful lake, when I discovered a horror. Behind the lean-to was a dump, maybe 40 feet square with rotting apple cores and balled-up aluminum foil, and a dead sneaker. And I was astonished, I was very angry, and I was deeply confused. The campers who were too lazy to take out what they had brought in, who did they think would clean up after them?
Došli smo do našeg mjesta za kampiranje. Bilo je to sklonište na strmini koja je gledala na kristalno, prekrasno jezero, kada sam oktrila užas. Iza skloništa bilo je smetlište, veliko 40 stopa kvadratnih sa trulim ogriscima jabuka i zgužvanom alu folijom i mrtvom tenisicom. I bila sam zapanjena, bila sam ljuta i jako zbunjena. Izletnici su bili prelijeni da iznesu ono što su donijeli, što su mislili tko će čistiti za njima?
That question stayed with me, and it simplified a little. Who cleans up after us? However you configure or wherever you place the us, who cleans up after us in Istanbul? Who cleans up after us in Rio or in Paris or in London? Here in New York, the Department of Sanitation cleans up after us, to the tune of 11,000 tons of garbage and 2,000 tons of recyclables every day. I wanted to get to know them as individuals. I wanted to understand who takes the job. What's it like to wear the uniform and bear that burden?
To pitanje ostalo je samnom, i malo se pojednostavilo. Tko čisti za nama? Kako god podesite ili gdje god da stavite nas, tko čisti za nama u Istanbulu? Tko čisti za nama u Riu Parizu ili Londonu? Ovdje u New Yorku, Odjel za Čistoću čisti za nama, u pjesmi 11000 tona smeća i 2000 tona reciklaže svakog dana. Htjela sam ih upoznati kao pojedince. Htjela sam razumjeti tko radi taj posao. Kako je nositi uniformu i imati taj teret?
So I started a research project with them. I rode in the trucks and walked the routes and interviewed people in offices and facilities all over the city, and I learned a lot, but I was still an outsider. I needed to go deeper.
Tako da sam započela istraživački projekt s njima. Vozila sam se u kamionima i šetala rutama i intervjuirala ljude u uredima i postrojenjima po cijelom gradu, i puno toga naučila, ali sam još uvijek bila outsider. Morala sam otići dublje.
So I took the job as a sanitation worker. I didn't just ride in the trucks now. I drove the trucks. And I operated the mechanical brooms and I plowed the snow. It was a remarkable privilege and an amazing education.
Tako da sam počela raditi kao čistač. Nisam se samo vozila u kamionima. Vozila sam kamion. I upravljala mehaničkim metlama i čistila snijeg. To je bila iznimna privilegija i odlično obrazovanje.
Everyone asks about the smell. It's there, but it's not as prevalent as you think, and on days when it is really bad, you get used to it rather quickly. The weight takes a long time to get used to. I knew people who were several years on the job whose bodies were still adjusting to the burden of bearing on your body tons of trash every week.
Svi pitaju za miris. Tu je, ali ne prevladava toliko koliko mislite, i na dane kada je izrazito loš, brzo se naviknete. Teško se naviknuti na težinu. Znala sam ljude koji su radili nekoliko godina a tijela su im se još prilagođavala na teret nošenja na vašem tijelu tone smeća svakog tjedna.
Then there's the danger. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, sanitation work is one of the 10 most dangerous occupations in the country, and I learned why. You're in and out of traffic all day, and it's zooming around you. It just wants to get past you, so it's often the motorist is not paying attention. That's really bad for the worker. And then the garbage itself is full of hazards that often fly back out of the truck and do terrible harm.
Onda ovdje je opasnost. Prema Birou za Statistiku Rada, čišćenje je jedno je od 10 najopasnijih zanimanja u zemlji, i naučila sam zašto. Ulazite i izlazite iz prometa svaki dan, i zuji oko vas. Želi vas samo obići, često su to motoristi koji ne obraćaju pažnju. To je strašno loše za radnike. I samo smeće je puno opasnosti i često izlijeće iz kamiona i radi štetu.
I also learned about the relentlessness of trash. When you step off the curb and you see a city from behind a truck, you come to understand that trash is like a force of nature unto itself. It never stops coming. It's also like a form of respiration or circulation. It must always be in motion.
Također sam naučila o ustrajnosti smeća. Kada siđete s rubnjaka i vidite grad iza kamiona, poćnete shvaćati da smeće je samo po sebi sila prirode. Nikad ne prestaje dolaziti. To je i forma disanja i cirkulacije. Uvijek mora biti u pokretu.
And then there's the stigma. You put on the uniform, and you become invisible until someone is upset with you for whatever reason like you've blocked traffic with your truck, or you're taking a break too close to their home, or you're drinking coffee in their diner, and they will come and scorn you, and tell you that they don't want you anywhere near them. I find the stigma especially ironic, because I strongly believe that sanitation workers are the most important labor force on the streets of the city, for three reasons. They are the first guardians of public health. If they're not taking away trash efficiently and effectively every day, it starts to spill out of its containments, and the dangers inherent to it threaten us in very real ways. Diseases we've had in check for decades and centuries burst forth again and start to harm us. The economy needs them. If we can't throw out the old stuff, we have no room for the new stuff, so then the engines of the economy start to sputter when consumption is compromised. I'm not advocating capitalism, I'm just pointing out their relationship. And then there's what I call our average, necessary quotidian velocity. By that I simply mean how fast we're used to moving in the contemporary day and age. We usually don't care for, repair, clean, carry around our coffee cup, our shopping bag, our bottle of water. We use them, we throw them out, we forget about them, because we know there's a workforce on the other side that's going to take it all away.
A tu je i stigma. Stavite uniformu i postajete nevidljivi, dok god netko nije ljut na vas iz bilo kojeg razloga kao kad blokirate promet kamionom, ili ste napravili pauzu preblizu njihova doma, ili pijete kavu u njihovoj zalogajnici, i oni će doći i grditi vas, i reći vam da vas ne žele blizu sebe. Nalazim da je stigma posebno ironična, jer snažno vjerujem da su čistači najvažnija radna snaga na ulicama grada, iz tri razloga. Oni su prvi čuvari javnog zdravlja. Ako ne odvoze smeće učinkovito i uspješno svaki dan, počne ispadati iz kontejnera, i opasnosti povezane s tim počinju nam prijetiti na stvarne načine. Bolesti koje su desetljećima i stoljećima mirovale pojave se ponovno i počinju nam nanositi štetu. Ekonomija ih treba. Ako ne možemo baciti stare stvari, nemamo mjesta za nove stvari, tako da strojevi ekonomije počinju zastajkivati kada je konzumiranje ugroženo. Ne potičem kapitalizam, samo ističem njihov odnos. I onda imamo ono što zovem naša prosječna, potrebna brzina kretanja. Time jednostavno mislim kako smo se brzo navikli kretati u trenutnom vremenu i dobu. Obično se ne brinemo, ne popravljamo, ne nosimo sa sobom svoju šalicu za kavu, ili vrećicu za trgovinu, ili bocu vode. Koristimo ih, bacimo ih, zaboravimo na njih, jer znamo da postoji radna snaga s druge strane koja će to sve odnijeti.
So I want to suggest today a couple of ways to think about sanitation that will perhaps help ameliorate the stigma and bring them into this conversation of how to craft a city that is sustainable and humane. Their work, I think, is kind of liturgical. They're on the streets every day, rhythmically. They wear a uniform in many cities. You know when to expect them. And their work lets us do our work. They are almost a form of reassurance. The flow that they maintain keeps us safe from ourselves, from our own dross, our cast-offs, and that flow must be maintained always no matter what.
Danas želim predložiti nekoliko načina da razmislimo o čišćenju koji će možda pomoći da se ukloni stigma i da ih uključimo u ovaj razgovor o izgradnji grada koji je održiv i human. Njihov rad, ja mislim, je pomalo liturgijski. Svakog dana su na ulici, ritmično. Nose uniforme u mnogim gradovima. Znate kada ih trebate očekivati. I njihov rad nam omogućuje naš rad. Oni su forma osiguravanja. Tijek koji održavaju drži nas sigurnima od samih sebe, našeg smeća, naših odbačenih stvari, i onda se tijek mora održavati stalno bez obzira na sve.
On the day after September 11 in 2001, I heard the growl of a sanitation truck on the street, and I grabbed my infant son and I ran downstairs and there was a man doing his paper recycling route like he did every Wednesday. And I tried to thank him for doing his work on that day of all days, but I started to cry. And he looked at me, and he just nodded, and he said, "We're going to be okay. We're going to be okay." It was a little while later that I started my research with sanitation, and I met that man again. His name is Paulie, and we worked together many times, and we became good friends.
Dan nakon 11. rujna 2001., čula sam režanje kamiona za smeće na ulicama, i zgrabila sam svog novorođenog sina i potrčala dolje i ondje je bio čovjek koji je radio svoju rutu za recikliranje papira kao što je to činio svake srijede. I pokušala sam mu zahvaliti jer je radio svoj posao na taj dan od svih dana, no počela sam plakati. I pogledao me, i samo je klimnuo i rekao, "Bit ćemo dobro. Bit ćemo dobro." Tek kasnije počela sam istraživati čišćenje, i srela sam ponovno tog čovjeka. Njegovo je ime Paulie, i puno smo puta radili skupa, i postali smo dobri prijatelji.
I want to believe that Paulie was right. We are going to be okay. But in our effort to reconfigure how we as a species exist on this planet, we must include and take account of all the costs, including the very real human cost of the labor. And we also would be well informed to reach out to the people who do that work and get their expertise on how do we think about, how do we create systems around sustainability that perhaps take us from curbside recycling, which is a remarkable success across 40 years, across the United States and countries around the world, and lift us up to a broader horizon where we're looking at other forms of waste that could be lessened from manufacturing and industrial sources. Municipal waste, what we think of when we talk about garbage, accounts for three percent of the nation's waste stream. It's a remarkable statistic.
Želim vjerovati da je Paulie bio u pravu. Bit ćemo dobro. Ali u našem trudu da podesimo kako kao vrsta postojimo na planetu, moramo uključiti i uzeti u obzir sve troškove, uključujući i stvarni ljudski trošak rada. I bili bismo mudri kada bi stupili u kontakt s ljudima koji taj posao rade i stekli njihovu ekspertizu o tome kako razmišljamo, kako stvaramo sustave oko održivosti koji nas vode od recikliranja uz cestu, koje je strašan uspjeh kroz 40 godina, kroz cijeli SAD i zemlje širom svijeta, i podići nas na širi horizont gdje gledamo ostale oblike otpada koje možemo smanjiti iz proizvodnje i industrije. Gradski otpad, na koji mislimo kada pričamo o smeću, daje tri posto tijeka smeća nacije. To je zapanjujuća statistika.
So in the flow of your days, in the flow of your lives, next time you see someone whose job is to clean up after you, take a moment to acknowledge them. Take a moment to say thank you.
U toku vaših dana, vaših života, kada vidite nekoga čiji je posao da čisti za vama, uzmite trenutak da ih prepoznate. Uzmite tren da im zahvalite.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)