Trash! A Garbageman’s Story

“The garbageman is the Sisyphus of our consumer society, condemned to go from house to house picking up bags, swept along day after day in the never-ending flow of refuse we produce,” writes Montréal sanitation worker Pare-Poupart in his bewitching debut memoir. Though he originally became a garbageman in 2003 to pay for college, Pare-Poupart soon developed an addiction to the physicality of the job—he describes wrestling bags filled with heavy construction debris and trying to tame recycling and compost pickups (“Want to know what a city smelled like during the Middle Ages? Take a shower in compost bin juice”)—and kept at it for the following 20 years. He details sweet encounters with kids who idolize his work and outlines how the job informed his conversion to freeganism, a waste-reducing lifestyle he embraced after witnessing the sheer volume of trash people produce. In addition to his own musings, Pare-Poupart shares anecdotes about his eccentric compatriots, including Beaujeunehomme, who often shows up to work drunk, and Michel (aka Spandex), who speaks only to the garbage. Enlightening, unpretentious, and gently political, Pare-Poupart’s fascinating account will help readers view their garbage in a whole new light. It’s a treasure. Photos. (June)