Riding a San Diego Garbage Truck: What Michelle Khare Learned About One of America's Most Dangerous Jobs
Michelle Khare
Michelle Khare opens the episode with footage of a burning garbage truck. It is one of three trucks that caught fire in San Diego in the past year, and all three fires were suspected to have been caused by lithium-ion batteries that were thrown away and ignited in the truck's compactor. Khare notes that garbage collection ranks among the most dangerous jobs in America, with more fatalities than active-duty police officers. To find out what the work is actually like, Khare joins the City of San Diego's sanitation crews for an eight-hour shift covering compost, recycling, and trash. The shift was meant to build toward a final challenge on one of the hardest trash routes in the city.
Learning the Basics on the Truck
Khare's instructors for most of the day are two drivers, Joaquin and Jackie. The first lessons cover handling the cans and staying safe around the automated arm. A can can be dumped with the lid open or closed, and most drivers prefer it open. The "basketball zone" is an area around the arm that workers must not cross, because a flipping can could hit them in the face. Khare admits to being intimidated by the truck's mechanics. A misplaced hand can be caught by the equipment, and the drivers warn that if a hand is left in the wrong spot, "you're going to get bit." They also give Khare advice on attitude: "you can't be scared," because "if you're afraid of the can, they know it."
A city representative explains why the job is dangerous. Drivers lift around 50 pounds of trash at a time and flip it into the back of the hopper. Containers can also have objects sticking out of them. During the shift, the crew finds a pole protruding from a resident's can that Khare says could have speared someone when it was flipped over.
Kids, Community, and Being a Woman in the Job
Khare describes frustrating moments with the community, but the route also shows the relationships between drivers and residents. Children love trash trucks, and the crew hands out "Trash Buster" stickers. A city representative compares the bond with the public to the one people have with police officers or firefighters, adding "we're trying to get there." Jackie sees the kids as the future, the ones who will "inform their parents on what to do and what not to do."
Jackie has done the job for 20 years. Khare noticed that no other women were at the morning meeting, and asks whether people ever doubted Jackie. According to Jackie, people always doubt women because of their height, weight, and feelings, so "we work harder than them and show them." Jackie recalls applying at a different company, not the City of San Diego, and being laughed at and steered toward office work after asking to drive the truck. Jackie chose not to apply there.
The Landfill
When the truck is full, the crew makes its first landfill run. Machinery weighing around two tons compacts the trash. Khare says they had never known a sanitation driver makes three trips to the landfill every day, and takes that as a measure of how much waste people produce. The smell is overwhelming. More striking to Khare, items that could have gone to recycling or to greens are visible everywhere in the landfill. That convinces Khare that people are widely confused about what can and cannot be recycled.
Inside a Recycling Plant
To understand that confusion better, Khare works a shift at a local recycling center, the Allan Company. Workers point out items that come in but cannot be recycled, such as foam and plastic bags. Khare is surprised that some things they had assumed were recyclable have "no home" in the system.
The material moves through a series of conveyor belts that separate cardboard, paper, glass, and plastic. Each stage uses a different method. A large drum magnet pulls out ferrous metals, and an optical sorter uses infrared light to tell plastics apart by resin type. Khare points out that the machines are efficient but not perfect, so manual sorters act as the last line of defense. On the line, Khare finds a diaper. Staff list other things they have seen arrive in recycling: skunks, roadkill, and a big slab of cement, apparently from someone removing a patio, which they had to break up on the conveyor belt.
The plant can process up to 600 tons of material a day. Staff single out lithium-ion batteries as one of the most dangerous items that end up there. One staff member describes losing an aluminum trailer because a battery was hidden inside; the fire made the news, but nobody was hurt. A city representative connects this back to the opening footage: as lithium-ion batteries become more common, truck fires are increasing, so the city keeps urging people to dispose of batteries properly.
In the sponsored segment, Khare admits to feeling embarrassed throughout filming, because they have not always sorted their own waste correctly. Seeing the consequences in person, Khare says, makes them want to recommit to doing better.
The Greens Route
Next, Khare works a greens route, which collects compost and yard waste. This route is much harder because every can has to be lifted by hand. The job involves lifting two to four tons of greens a day, so technique matters. Joaquin teaches Khare to swing a can in and to team-lift the heaviest ones on a count of three, and warns Khare to be careful with the wrist.
Khare asks Joaquin for a brutally honest rating from one to ten. Joaquin gives a four, calling it "almost there." Khare protests that four out of ten is an F and says they hope to reach a nine by the end of the day.
The greens go to the Miramar Greenery, where all of the city's compost ends up. There it is turned into mulch, which San Diego residents can buy. Khare finds it striking to see how much depends on people putting things in the right bin. When plastic turns up in the compost, Khare tells whoever put it there to "do better" and confirms with Joaquin that it belongs in the blue bin.
"It's About Respect"
Khare says one comment from Jackie on the drive up stuck with them. Many people put things in bins without understanding what they are participating in, and they think the crews are simply there to clean up their mess. Khare's takeaway is that it comes down to respecting the people who do thankless work on your behalf.
The Hardest Route
The video was supposed to end there. Jackie and Joaquin, however, asked Khare to come back for one more day on one of the city's hardest trash routes. Archival news footage shows what happens when collection stops: the streets "can almost look like an apocalypse," and the clip mentions over a hundred thousand tons of uncollected garbage. A city voice draws a comparison. If a pothole repair waits an extra day, it's probably fine, but if trash collection slips by several days, "that's an issue."
The route is in bad shape after rain, which makes the trash heavier and more liquid. Khare makes what they call several embarrassing mistakes, including a mishap during their "first client experience," and apologizes repeatedly. Khare credits Jackie and Joaquin for teaching them how to do it right and is struck by how much technique the work demands. The crew has a name for the liquid at the bottom of the cans: "booty water."
The Pandemic and Essential Work
The crew and a city representative describe COVID-19 as proof that "the trash can't stop." With everyone quarantined, tonnage rose across trash, recycling, and greens. The greens were "ridiculous," and volumes are still settling without having returned to pre-pandemic levels. The workers compare themselves to first responders. One says they have to be out in rain or snow. Another says many drivers cope with humor, but "behind that there's misery, there's pain," and that they "work for every penny." A city representative thanks sanitation drivers in San Diego and across the country, saying the job "is not for everyone" but is essential.
An archival speech clip follows, stating that any work that serves humanity "has dignity and it has worth." Khare jokes that they couldn't take the bus home because they smelled too bad.
Closing Words from the Crew
The drivers invite the public to come say hi, ask questions, and talk to them, so people can see and appreciate what they do. One driver becomes emotional, explaining that the job is "not just a job" but their life, their family, and how they feed the people they care about. They emphasize that the crews never stopped during the pandemic, showing up every day and helping wherever they were needed, whether or not it was on their route. Another calls the work "first line of defense" and says you have to love what you do. The video ends with a rainbow appearing over the crew, which one of them takes as a sign of good luck.
A portion of this video is sponsored by Google.
This is one of three garbage trucks that caught fire in San Diego in the last year. All three accidents were suspected to be caused by lithium-ion batteries that were thrown away and ignited in the truck's compactor.
Garbage collection is ranked among the most dangerous jobs in America, with even more fatalities than active duty police officers. And so today I am joining the garbage men and women of San Diego to see what it's really like to work on one of these trucks. Challenge accepted.
You're actually riding on here. Look at you. Have you ever been on a moving vehicle like this? No.
Today I am working an eight-hour sanitation shift, which will include compost, recycling, and trash, all leading up to my final challenge: working one of the hardest trash routes in San Diego. Yeah, nasty. But before I do that, I need to learn the basics.
You can open the lid, or you can keep the lid closed. Most of the guys like the lid open. Then you flip it.
See where Joaquin is? That's the basketball zone. Don't cross it. Why? So you won't get hit in the face. But again, my job is, in one word, fantastic.
I'm sorry. You can't be scared. It's confidence. You gotta build up your confidence. Okay. If you're afraid of the can, they know it. They know. They know that you're afraid.
But I was still really intimidated by the intricate mechanics of the truck itself, because one wrong move or misplaced hand could spell disaster.
Let go, because you don't want it to pop this hand down. If you leave your hand there, you're going to get bit.
So being a sanitation driver can be one of the most dangerous jobs here in the United States of America. Not only are they lifting 50 pounds of trash and flipping that in the back of the hopper, but a lot of things can be protruding out of the container, sometimes poles.
Right, this literally could stab somebody. Somebody's garbage can. It could have speared somebody when we flipped it over.
And while there were a lot of frustrating moments from the community like this, I wasn't giving up on humanity just yet.
Yeah, now you are too. I'm here with Jackie, picking up trash for today.
Kids love sanitation drivers. We have a lot of special relationships between our customers and our drivers that I think is really cool, and it's really rewarding. It's almost maybe that of a police officer or firefighter. We're trying to get there, but kids just love trash trucks.
And then we give the kids... They want a sticker. Thanks for watching my channel. Bye.
Look at this, Trash Buster. Wait, can I wear one, or is it for kids only? No, you can wear them. Yes!
Kids are our future, so they're gonna be the ones looking up to us. They're going to be the ones to inform their parents on what to do and what not to do. I love the kids.
How long have you been doing this? Twenty years. Twenty years? Twenty years, yes. Wow.
When we were at the meeting this morning, I didn't see a single other girl there. There's not many girls. Did people ever doubt you?
They always doubt another woman because of our height and our weight and our feelings. That's why we work harder than them and show them.
I had experience in a different company, not the City of San Diego, but when I went to apply, they laughed at me. They was like, "Oh, you want to work in the office?" I'm like, "No, I want to drive the truck." It was like, "You want to drive this truck?" I'm like, "Yeah." "Nah, you can work in the office." So I didn't apply at that company.
Yeah. It's like bowling. Wait, can I try? All right. See, you gotta push harder. You gotta get mad. That was a good push. Oh, we gotta go. Okay, we're having too much fun.
With the truck loaded up, it was finally time to make our first trip to the landfill.
The landfill itself is quite the operation. You have two-ton pieces of machinery compacting that trash. Growing up, I never knew that a sanitation driver made three trips to the landfill on a daily basis, and that's how much stuff we're accumulating that we have to get rid of.
Oh my God, it smells so bad. Parameta is just so gross. We're just walking around the landfill, and literally everywhere you look, there are items that could have gone to either recycling or greenery. I mean, just want to clean my lungs after that. Look.
After visiting the landfill, it was clear to me that there is a lot of confusion about what is and isn't recyclable. And so I was invited to work a shift at a local recycling plant to see for myself.
Oh, it's crazy. Wow. Big operation that we have here. This is no... Comes in. The foam, plastic bags. You know what's interesting is some of these things are things I thought were recyclable, but they're not. They're not. There isn't a home for them.
Looks like it'd be fun to ride. Yeah, just the destination is not a very nice place.
It all goes through a series of conveyor belts to be sorted by material, from cardboard and paper to glass and plastic. Everything has to be separated, and each belt has a different ingenious way of doing this, like this large drum magnet used to separate anything made of ferrous metals, or this optical sorter that uses infrared light to distinguish plastics by resin type. And while these machines are incredibly efficient, they're not perfect, and so recycling plants utilize manual sorting as their last line of defense.
Diaper. A diaper. So it smells like... Who puts a diaper in the recycling? Somebody in San Diego.
What's the craziest thing you've seen come from the recycling? Skunks, roadkill, big slab of cement. Yeah, it's like somebody was taking out their patio. They throw a big old piece of cement. We had to break it on the conveyor belt.
Up to 600 tons of material can go through this plant in one day, and one of the more dangerous items that can end up here are lithium-ion batteries.
We actually lost an aluminum trailer because we didn't know that there was a battery in it. It took it all out. It was up in flames. It made the news. Luckily nobody got hurt. When we were at SCSD, they had three trucks that blew up because of lithium-ion batteries.
With the rise of lithium-ion batteries, we're seeing a rise in the level of truck fires, and so we're always encouraging people to get rid of those things properly and safely. That's extremely important.
So what do we do with our lithium-ion batteries? I know I'm not the only one asking this question, because "Can lithium batteries be recycled?" was one of the top 10 questions searched about recycling in the U.S. over the past year. So I want to give a special thank you to Google for sponsoring this portion of the video.
Google Trends reveals that the world is turning to Google for... And in 2023, YouTube searches for sustainability reached the highest level in the U.S. in the past five years.
And if I'm being completely honest with you guys, I have been feeling pretty embarrassed the entire time we've been filming this video because I have personally not always been the best at sorting my own waste properly. After seeing the consequences of my own actions in real life, I personally really want to recommit to being better.
If you're ever confused about how to dispose of certain items or what goes in what bin, Google Maps and Search can help you find local businesses to dispose of plastic bags, electronics, and even lithium-ion batteries.
In addition to helping us be more sustainable, Google knows it has a responsibility as a large corporation to take action. They're committed to sustainability by matching 100 percent of their electricity use with renewable energy since 2017, and aim to achieve net zero emissions across all of their operations and value chain by 2030. You can learn more about sustainability and Google's efforts at sustainability.google. So thank you so much to Google for sponsoring a portion of this episode. And now I am going to get out of this trash can.
After experiencing trash and recycling, it was time for me to do greens, that is, compost, yard waste. There you go. And I quickly learned how much harder this route was going to be because I had to lift every single can by hand, and they can get heavy. Careful. This job requires you to lift two to four tons of greens every day, and that's where technique comes in.
You make it look so cool and easy. Try this one. This is a different move too. You can swing it in. Whoa.
Yes, I feel like I'm gonna launch it. I'm gonna watch you. Yeah. Good job. Just careful with your wrist. Yeah, okay. That one is heavy. You're a natural.
What are we, Captain America together? You go that side, I'll go this, at the same time. One, two, three.
How am I doing, Joaquin? You're doing excellent. You are. Are you just saying that you're on camera? No, I'm saying that because you did a good job. A scale of one to ten, be brutally honest. If you're lying, we'll know. Brutally honestly, as far as one to ten, I'll give you a four. You're almost there. Four out of ten is not there. That's an F. No, that's family. That's good. I hope to get to a nine by the end of today. Do you think I can do it? All right, yeah, I think you can.
Still hoping I could improve before the end of the day, we traveled to the Miramar Greenery, where all the city's compost ends up.
So this is where we dump our greens, and then the operation is they make it into this mulch. In the City of San Diego, residents are able to purchase that. It's so impactful to see it in person, that if you just take the time and put it in the right bin...
Whoever put plastic in their compost this morning, you suck. Do better. That goes in the blue bin, right, Joaquin? Yeah, it goes in the blue bin, yeah.
And after a quick PSA, it was finally time to empty the truck.
What? Oh my gosh, there's so much stuff coming out.
When we were driving up, Jackie said something that really impacted me. She said so many people put things in bins, but they don't even know what they're participating in. They just think that we're here to clean up their mess. It's about respect. I mean, it's respecting the people who are doing this thing for you that is thankless.
So this was actually supposed to be the end of the video, but after talking to Joaquin and Jackie, they wanted me to come back for just one more day to really get the full experience, to go on one of the hardest trash routes in the city.
You ready? Nice to see you again. Good luck.
So historically, when trash service doesn't happen, it can almost look like an apocalypse. Every moment that goes by, the situation gets more serious. They're up to over a hundred thousand tons now, and the problem of collecting this garbage is tremendous. If a pothole takes one more day, it's probably okay, right? The trash takes one, two, three, four, or five more days, that's an issue.
The trash, results of the rain, a lot, a lot heavier and liquidy. Yeah, nasty. Do it. You can do it. There you go.
I have definitely made a few mistakes. Slowly, slowly. Okay. A few very embarrassing mistakes, actually. Thank you. I'm so sorry. Are you okay? I think so. Okay. The first client experience ever. Thankfully, I've got Jackie and Joaquin teaching me how to do it right. There's so much technique to all of this. I'm sorry. It's all right.
The COVID-19 pandemic, I think, really showed people that, number one, the trash can't stop. It has to continue each and every day. Since everybody was quarantined, all of our tonnage went up. Our trash, our recycling, even our greens. Our greens were ridiculous. It's still, even right now, it's still kind of evening out. We still haven't gone back to the pre-pandemic levels.
We can't stop doing what we're doing. We have to do our job. It's just like the first responders. We serve. My job don't stop. I gotta go to work. Rain, sleet, or snow, I gotta be out there.
Through a lot of hard work and dedication to do a job like this, it's not easy. A lot of people are coping with the job through laughter and jokes, but behind that there's misery, there's pain, there's hard work and struggle. It's definitely a tough job. We work for every penny.
It's an extremely dangerous job also. When you're picking up garbage, there can be anything in there. It's filthy. Oh my God. That's what we call the booty water. It takes heart and courage and ability. This is a serious job. This is so hard.
I really want to say thank you to our sanitation drivers, not only at the City of San Diego, but throughout the entire United States, who showed up each and every day to get the job done.
This job is not for everyone, but it's definitely one of the jobs that is essential. I'm thankful for the job.
Man, that's why. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth.
Sanitation workers. I couldn't ride the bus home because I smelled too bad, so I didn't ride the bus. I walked. This is where I spend the majority of my time, here. If you are not aware of what we do on a daily basis, come out and say hi. Come out and ask us. Come out and talk to us. We'll show you what we do so you can appreciate what we do. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be crying. Sorry.
It's not just a job. This is your life. This is your family. This is how you feed your people that you care about. During the pandemic, we never gave up. We came out every day. We showed up every day. We helped everyone that needed our help, whether they was in our area or not. We just wanted to take care of the city.
I really appreciate having the opportunity to be here. First line of defense. You gotta love what you do, and I love what I do, so I show up every day. So thank you.
Oh my God, you're everything. I didn't mean to cry. Rainbow. Oh, this is for us. Oh, that means good luck.
Foreign.
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