Taking out the trash

Picking Up is about the seemingly mundane and certainly smelly world of garbage collection in New York City. Author Robin Nagle is motivated by the question, “Who cleans up after us?” She works as an anthropologist-in-residence at the New York Department of Sanitation (DSNY) where she drives trucks, collects waste and clears snow. Nagle offers the reader an insider’s perspective on the four seasons of a sanitation worker: spring, maggots, leaves and night plow. Read more.