Let's Talk Trash. Because Bus Stop Garbage Is Changing How I See People

For the next six months I am cleaning bus shelters in the Northeast district of Seattle. That’s where a large number of destitute people, meaning panhandlers, homeless people, and folks with no better place to go to get out of the rain seem to want to hang out. It's also where people who are not so homeless spit gum on the sidewalk and fill the trash cans meant for bus passengers with things they don't want to pay to haul away: like seriously heavy car parts, their personal household garbage, and even 35 gallons of dog poo wrapped in individual-sized doggie bags (probably deposited by numerous dog walkers).

NOTICE THE BENCH. Short. Hard. Metal (to encourage
sitting but discourage comfortable sleeping on it)

Judging by the beer and whiskey bottles behind, used heroine needles, and pizza boxes that I throw into my truck with all the other trash, it’s obvious that bus shelters provide respite for many unintended guests ... mostly people who are not nearly as down-and-out as, say, the poor and homeless who live in places like Madagascar. Nope. These garbage-makers have some degree of affluence or they would not be able to create so much waste and debris

My Personal Experiences With The Homeless Who Hang Out At Seattle’s Bus Shelters

While I’m momentarily contracted to power-wash and collect trash, I start work at 4:30 in the morning. That means I’m sometimes waking people up in ways I never intended. The bright lights from my utility truck woke a woman who was sleeping in a store front doorway near one of my stops here recently. As she stood up to stare at me I noticed she was a bit smaller than me, also blonde, and she looked highly vulnerable to life on the streets. As I looked her way, I really worried about her well-being. Then she flipped me off, with both hands, and I was reminded there are many reasons why people become dispossessed or disinherited.

People Who Live On The Street: All Unique

Next bus stop? A homeless man approached while I collected garbage and started helping me clean. It was like he felt sorry for the fact that I had to pick up trash - or maybe he was the one who left it there, beneath the bench, and felt guilty when I showed up. Who knows. I thanked him for his help but pointed out the fact he didn't wear rubber gloves - so maybe I needed to be the only one tidying up. Insight about germs and contagious diseases seemed to dawn on him and he left me to work alone.

Nobody who is reading this blog entry right now is lowly enough, or so closely aligned with the very first amoeba that crawled out of the ocean, to diminish themselves by talking badly about society’s under-privileged (meaning the homeless) and that's not where I'm going with this article either. Just like any community in America, someone who is homeless could be from any culture, philosophy or religion. Some homeless people bathe. Some don't. Some are very smart. Some aren't. Talking about people from a low socio-economic status like they're all the same would show great ignorance on our part. So let's make it clear when I talk about the homeless I'm only talking about a very small segment of people of a particular soci-economical-housing-disadvantage and they're only people who have met ME (as opposed to homeless folks who live in people-shelters or avoid bus shelters altogether or who have met Johnny Depp and therefore make me feel very jealous).

It's a regularly established fact that some people become homeless after they lose everything thanks to life experiences like drug addiction, divorce or PTSD. There are also some very hard-working street people who have reasonably good habits - they just cannot afford to pay rent on their minimum wage paycheck. Heck, we have all heard of soldiers returning to America from the ravages of war who cannot keep things together now and become homeless thanks to their past trauma. 

No matter the cause for someone choosing to live on the streets, we all can agree it's a crying shame when someone cannot get basic necessities like a dry place to sleep. So I approach non-bus-riding customers who are staying inside a bus stop with the desire to be considerate.

At yet another bus shelter, I was power-washing and a well-groomed grey-haired man moved close from behind me to ask if I could please avoid getting his bedding wet. He didn't look "homeless" (meaning disheveled or poor) but in the direction he pointed was a sleeping bag; 5 feet past the “rent-a-bicycle” rack and another ten feet beyond the bus shelter. To accommodate him, I changed the direction I pointed my jet-steam. That’s when he offered to come home to live with me and, oh compliment of all compliments, said I was just as sexy as his sister. That's what he said. That's not a joke.

At the next stop, someone had left their cardboard “please help” sign along with a syringe with its uncapped needle ready to stab anyone who kicked it on accident. I've found as many as 15 needles left in a pile on the ground at other bus stops. One can only ponder what sort of "den of iniquity" that bus shelter provided for people.

When it comes to protecting the public from used needles, Utility Workers have a lot of rules to follow.  I treat each one like the toxic waste products they really are and feel grateful for nifty grabbers, where I don’t have to touch the pokey things with my bare hands.
 
Yet beyond needles and garbage that some folks leave behind, there’s also barf and, you guessed it. Someone just may have sat there on the bus stop’s bench with their pants down. Diarrhea is not a fun or pleasant-smelling splatter to clean up with a shovel and/or power washer.

Now I gotta admit I prefer to think that it's the homeless people who are using bus stations for toilets. Yet I could be wrong about that. Maybe it's just drunk college kids, or angry people who are expressing some political statement about tidy bus stops. Who knows.

Since I personally recycle or reuse packaging items as much as possible I often wonder why some people from Seattle would create so much garbage that it clutters public areas. I consider the reality that someone might be so high (on drugs) they just cannot function or do anything socially responsible at all. That idea seems more palatable than pondering that people might create trash either for shear laziness, or out of spite for society, or some other form of meanness. 

Should We Give Homeless A Handout?

Many years ago, when my children were little, I used to go to the food bank on a semi regular occasion because feeding my family was just impossible given my measly monthly paycheck. Back then, I would get donated food then would sit in my dilapidated old car crying out of gratitude for all the generous people who made it possible for my children to eat. The memory of that has caused me to donate money to food banks over the years whenever I can.

Contrast my personal experiences with what charity I find tossed away in the bus shelter trash cans today and I gain a different perspective. It seems obvious from the unopened cans of pork-and-beans, bottles full of juice, and boxes of dry goods that some folks pick through whatever they got from the food bank, keep what they like, and throw the rest away.

Add to that reality that it’s cheaper to go get a brand new coat for FREE than it is to put quarters in a washing machine to clean the one you're wearing and you understand why so many homeless leave their clothes in the park, along any given sidewalk or at the bus shelter where I am obligate to throw such dirty items away.

All my experiences have caused me to believe that for many - when food and clothes are always free such charity carries little or no value. The right recipient (no matter how needy) who is actively trying to improve their life situation will fully appreciate the charity and will use it to go on and improve their life. Other people? I just don't understand how they think.

While Seattle put "help the homeless" strategies in place many years ago - those seem to not be working. The homeless population keeps growing in this metropolis and so does the amount of garbage the city and county continue to clean up.

If there's a conclusion to this article about the homeless, and about garbage at bus shelters, I'm not sure what that moral would be. Yet there's obviously a segment of society that does not hold my same values for social awareness and polite cooperation. That segment continues to throw trash on the ground when an available trash receptacle is a mere foot away. I'm not sure if those litterers are being mind-controlled by extraterrestrial radio waves and therefore should be held harmless for the behavior they exhibit or if they all need to be sent to an island of floating plastic out at sea where they can smother each other in their own trash. 

Point is - there is no point. There is no answer. There is only trash talk and garbage. The telling of a story for the reader to decide why things are as they seem to be and whether anything could be done to improve life for all or even should something be done about anything.

*the end*