Waste collection is a vital, yet often unsung type of work. Charlotte Muru-Lanning writes about her obsession with a 1992 documentary about a crew of razzle dazzle ‘dusties’.

All week on The Spinoff we are delving into our relationship with the world of work in Aotearoa. For more Work Week stories, click here.

In the Tāmaki Makaurau of the early 90s, before wheelie bins and automated pick-up trucks, getting your rubbish to the dump took a crew of men running alongside a rubbish truck for hours on end. They’d be out there whatever the weather, on weekday mornings, hauling paper and plastic bags and shoving the contents of metal cans into the jaws of a truck that crept along at a slow but unceasing pace. In their battered white sneakers, they’d dip and dive across roads, berms and footpaths – awakening sleepy suburbia with a very specific brand of pageantry.

I have no first-hand memory of this operation, mind you, having been born later in the decade. My entire knowledge of these workers is based on a 23-minute documentary called Running the Rubbish. Directed by Alan Erson in 1992, it offers a glimpse into the everyday life of a crew of South Auckland rubbish runners or “dusties” – the men who collected Auckland’s rubbish. 

“This nation’s household excrement, bagged or binned and disgorged onto the streets once a week, is snatched up with unique style and pride,” the narrator opens, while on screen, three men launch upon a heaving pile of bagged suburban rubbish. “The men of Manukau Refuse Collection pick up rubbish on the run: they are fast, tough and mostly Māori.”

I first stumbled across the documentary a few years ago, and I return to it frequently. It is a charming artefact of an Auckland past, a celebration of workers and a vital record of urban Māori history. I’m obsessed with the documentary itself, and I’m obsessed with the runners. 

As far as work goes, picking up the rubbish is of course a decidedly unglamorous affair. It’s a job that might at first instance not warrant a poetically narrated documentary, and yet, it’s not difficult to understand why someone thought this team of workers so worthy of documenting.

There is a sort of choreography to their graceful approach. Bins are tossed with remarkable elegance. On the off beat, tricks are made of lighter objects. In one shot, a runner hangs off the side of the truck and to a steady tempo lunges one by one at the procession of bags lining the berm, before flicking them into the truck. Each runner’s rhythmic precision as they stride and then clatter sacks of rotting food, plastic packaging and empty tins into the skip resembles a freestyle dance performance – to which residents have a front row seat. Or, as the film’s narrator describes it, like “a rare street ballet touring Auckland’s lonely suburbia.”

Then there is the ecosystem surrounding the runners. Their days punctuated by a stop at a dainty East-Auckland café for tea, a visit to the dairy which opens extra-early to serve breakfast, then rugby league training and evening pints at local pub, The Bellbird.

There is one other New Zealand documentary about dusties – it’s about those who collected Wellington’s rubbish in the 1970s. Unlike that monochrome documentary, which paints the job as quite miserable, these runners seem to beam with pride when they describe their work. It’s a feeling matched by the members of the public who are interviewed: “they just do a great job”, “they work their butts off”. One high school student practically blushes while saying through a grin, “they’re a bit sort of scummy looking I guess, but not really, I think they’re alright.”

The world of rubbish runners, at least in this spectacular form, is firmly bound to the past. Though not altogether obsolete, since the 1990s the number of rubbish runners has dwindled, particularly in Tāmaki Makaurau. There are still rubbish runners in many parts of the country, mainly the provinces. And Auckland still has a few. Around 30 in total, or 60, if you count inorganic collection runners, says Warwick Jaine, Auckland Council’s Waste Contracts & Compliance Manager. These days their techniques are less fanciful, in adherence with health and safety regulations. Rubbish is loaded onto the side of trucks. Runners stay on the footpath. Their bare chests and mishmash attire has been replaced by fluorescent PPE. 

The first threat to the occupation came in 1985 with the introduction of Waste Management NZ’s first collection truck with an automated arm. Although, “the big milestone came in 1989,” says Jaine, “when there was a reform of local government”. As part of this, borough councils were amalgamated into larger councils like North Shore City Council, Manukau City Council and Auckland City Council. Before this transition, “you had council works departments, they had depots, and some of them had their own rubbish trucks,” says Jaine. 

That merging led to a shift from a hybrid of council employed and outsourced runners to an entirely outsourced workforce. With this shift toward outsourcing to various waste companies came outsourced contracts for wheelie bins that could be loaded onto trucks automatically, without the need for human hands. The first automated collection system was rolled out in Mt Roskill, “and that system has extended to what we have now, where over half of million households are fitted out with wheelie bins in some shape or form,” he adds. 

This transition toward automated rubbish collection has largely been bolstered by the dangerous nature of the job for workers. Those dangers are highlighted in the documentary where the job-related hazards are simply alarming. Bins packed too densely made it easy to tear muscles. Shards of glass and smashed tins made for regular cuts, some of which would end up infected. When it rained, the trucks were slippery. And the necessity of sprinting across lanes of cars has obvious risks involved. Many of the runners worked casually, meaning they had no cover if they were injured.

It’s these dangers that cast a shadow over my admittedly romanticised view of the work. In Aotearoa, Māori workers tend to incur poorer working conditions, including higher injury rates and exposure to physical hazards than non-Māori workers. Watching these “mostly Māori” men putting their bodies and lives on the line for the benefits of consumerism isn’t such cheerful viewing in that context.

Work is always changing. And this footage represents the end of an era. One that is worth looking back on, and certainly, appreciating, but in practice, probably better relegated to the past. The rubbish runners of South Auckland brought flair and intrigue to a job that could have so easily been dull and monotonous. Flourish was prioritised over necessity in every leap, toss and sprint. The rubbish runners elevated picking up the unwanted into something exceptionally cool. Like many workers, they made an art out of the everyday.