While most people go out of their way to avoid dealing with trash, Montreal garbageman Simon Pare-Poupart has found it to be rich fodder for telling stories about what people leave behind and the crews who clean it up. As a garbage man with two decades of experience, he’s hauled bags and bins across many neighbourhoods in Montreal and said most people don’t consider what they throw out and where it goes. “How people perceive trash, it is something that you don’t have to take care of,” said Pare-Poupart, “So the problem is this disconnection.” He first started working as a garbageman at 18, while he was a CEGEP student, and found out quickly that it was a very physical job. He said it is like a sport that you need to train for, except, in his case, he is providing a service that keeps streets clean. “It’s hard. You have to retreat in yourself and think about why you do it,” he said. Even after earning graduate degrees and working as a social worker, he said he couldn’t give up being a garbageman. “I did both, but I so much love my job,” he said. “It’s like a passion; I think that it’s my drug.” A professor encouraged him to write about his passion, a project that turned into a best-selling memoir “Trash! A Garbageman’s Story”. Its original version, in French, became a best-seller, and the book was recently translated into English and featured in the New York Times. “I had this kind of mission, this interest in humanizing the milieu and humanizing people that were collecting trash here,” said Pare-Poupart. He said it’s a tough job that attracts a lot of misfits, offering them a way to earn decent wages. “I think that this job rehabilitates people. I mean, people that were marginalized, ostracized will come to this job.” He added it’s a competitive field, since most cities contract the work out to private companies and workers need to collect as much as possible within their shifts. Then there’s the harsh working conditions and the bad smells, though, he adds; winter is the worst part of the job. “Winter is the worst thing that can happen to a laborer,” he said. Pare-Poupart’s story has now inspired a film, a play and a documentary, but he said he has no intention of giving up his day job, since it’s what keeps him grounded and gives him purpose. He also said he sees it as his mission to ensure people think twice about what they’re throwing away and how it affects the environment.
