Sanitation Engineering

I don't think rubbish, especially en masse, is beautiful. However, when I rounded a bend on my way to Tortuga on Sunday and saw this totally unexpected expanse of rubbish, my first reaction was "Wow!" In the moment it struck me as having a strange beauty. It was early in the morning, just after seven, the atmosphere was cool and moist, pleasantly sunny and I was feeling peaceful, having had a breezy cruise down the highway with no traffic. This solid sea of colours stretched before me in an area greater than my camera was able to capture. Men in tractors and bulldozers and on foot were moving in slow motion through the wasteland and vultures were gliding above and around them. There could almost have been beautiful music playing in the background.

I have never seen such a vast amount of rubbish in one place. Had it been a hot, miserable day, I would most likely not have seen it in the same way. I would have been horrified. To think that it looks like so much, yet it's not even a dot in the grand scheme of rubbish which we human beings produce on a daily basis worldwide.

I have a silent fascination with garbage collectors. Whenever I see them hanging onto the backs of grimy trucks, constantly inhaling the fumes of people's waste, I marvel at how they do it. Most of all I wonder who they are when they get home and wash off the day. When people ask them what they do for a living, what do they say? Do they say it with pride? How did they get into the job as a 'sanitation engineer'? How much money do they earn? Do they love what they do?

I will hopefully be doing some 'sanitation engineering' of my own today. It's that time again when I need to throw away/give away some things and create space.