While the nation was scrambling to deal with the wave of Infection in Omikeron, another crisis had crept in, disrupting the lives of the American people.
In recent weeks, garbage recycling in many parts of the United States has come to a standstill, with a large number of garbage and recyclables piled up on the streets and no one cleaning up, and many cities have fallen into a "garbage crisis".
The COVID-19 pandemic has left cleaning workers severely understaffed, so recycling has had to be postponed. The American people are particularly angry and shocked at the government's inability to perform its basic duties.
Garbage piles are everywhere visible
Since Waste Management (WM) missed a recycling day on January 11, local time, garbage in the Colbert community in Spokane County, Washington, has been piled up for two weeks.
Linda didn't care at first, she had lived in the community for many years, thinking that the garbage management company had just missed recycling by accident, thinking that they would soon get the recycling done.
But this is not the case, Linda told Spokane KHQ-TV, and then the garbage management company repeatedly said that they were already on the way to deal with the garbage, but the garbage collection work was still delayed, which made Linda very disappointed in the action and transparency of the garbage management company.
Linda is now worried that the dump is getting worse and worse, "there is a lot of garbage piled up on the side of the recycling bins in each house, and wild dogs and coyotes will tear up garbage bags and get garbage everywhere." ”
Garbage and recyclables accumulate across the country. /Social media screenshots
The dumping of garbage is not only happening in Linda's neighborhood, but also in many city streets across the United States.
In Nashville, Tennessee, recycling bins filled with Christmas gift boxes and wrapping paper are thrown haphazardly on the side of the road; garbage bags pile up on the streets of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and dead branches and leaves pruned from yards are clogged on the atlanta, Georgia, sidewalk.
Madelyn Rubin, a resident of Jacksonville, Florida, said the current situation felt "shame." The Associated Press pointed out that the delay in recycling and cleaning not only brings annoyance to residents, but also causes problems such as blocked sewers and sidewalks.
The collateral damage of the COVID-19 pandemic
The direct cause of this "garbage crisis" is the shortage of cleaning workers.
Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a labor shortage in cleaning efforts across the United States. David Bidman, executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America, said how to recruit and retain workers may be the biggest health challenge for solid waste companies and local governments.
Recycling garbage is never an exciting job. The New York Times pointed out that workers need to come to work very early, work long hours in hot or cold environments, and taste bad, while the average salary of cleaners in the United States is only $40,000 a year, which makes recruitment particularly difficult.
The ensuing COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the labor shortage. According to the statistics of the new crown epidemic released by Johns Hopkins University on January 19, local time, the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the United States exceeded 67.5 million, and the cumulative number of deaths exceeded 850,000, which is the country with the largest cumulative number of confirmed cases and cumulative deaths in the world.
Among them, on January 18, local time, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that Omiquerong accounted for 99.5% of the current new cases in the United States. The Associated Press noted that Omi kerong infected many cleaners across the United States, causing many cities to postpone or suspend garbage collection efforts.
As cleaners contract COVID-19, garbage piles up on the side of the road and goes unnoticed. /Social media screenshots
Just as Americans were making a lot of garbage during Last Christmas, Omicron was also sweeping the country, and front-line cleaners had lower vaccination levels, and Bidman said that a combination of factors formed a "storm" that delayed garbage collection.
In some communities, As many as a quarter of cleaners take sick leave, Bidman added. New York, which boasts the world's largest municipal health team, has left the workforce of 2,000 of its 7,000 employees under the latest outbreak of COVID-19.
After the shortage of manpower, it is not possible to recruit and supplement directly. Philadelphia Street Commissioner Carlton Williams said that if an employee takes sick leave and cannot be replaced directly, it needs to be left for employees to recover, resulting in delays in garbage collection.
The dumping of garbage is also a headache for the municipality, which is looking for ways to remedy it. Cities including Atlanta, Nashville and Louisville have a shortage of cleaners, so they have suspended collecting recyclables such as paper, plastic, bottles and cans, instead focusing on recycling waste that smells worse and has a greater environmental impact.
There are also municipalities that are hiring temporary workers or entering into agreements with private porters, and some companies offer retention bonuses and temporary pay raises. Chattanooga, Tennessee, raised drivers' starting salaries by more than 40 percent, from $31,500 a year to $45,000 a year.
Failure of urban governance efforts
In fact, this is already the third "garbage crisis" in the United States during the COVID-19 epidemic.
The first occurred in the spring of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic had just begun to spread in the United States. As delta variants surged last summer, the problem of garbage recycling resurfaced.
The emergence of this "garbage crisis" is not completely without warning. Last December, the North American Solid Waste Association warned government officials and cleaners to prepare for manpower shortages.
Perhaps more surprising to the American people than the stinking garbage is that the government has not responded to it.
Freddie O'Connell, a member of nashville City Council, was as surprised as voters when he was notified by Christmas that the city would stop recycling curbside trash.
The city government had no options, much to O'Connell's shock. For people with limited mobility or people without cars, the city government also does not provide hotlines that can help them transport their garbage to the center's discard points.
"It feels like a failure of (urban) governance." O'Connell added.
The obstruction of garbage collection is just one of the many basic services that have been interrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a large number of teachers, firefighters, police officers and transport workers across the country who have been absent from work due to illness, affecting basic services everywhere.
A man whose life was deeply affected by the disruption of basic services sent an email to the city of Jacksonville, in which he asked, "If civil servants can't even maintain basic services, what use are they?" ”
(Cover image from a screenshot of an Associated Press report)
Beijing News reporter Luan Ruoxi
Edited by Zhang Lei, Proofreader Wu Xingfa