No one ever sang “My old man’s a sewer worker “

The premise of this article is true but the “My old man’s a dustman” (Lonnie Donegan) image (Google it) falls a lot short and shows who is working what shift, who is up early to see the bloke in the air conditioned dual control garbage truck pick up the wheelie bins. No more the two blokes in singlets and shorts and a rolly in their mouth running behind the truck hefting galv bins into the truck – they are not only the ones NOT waste deep in garbage but they are the unemployed, the unemployable whose jobs have disappeared. But wait, the sewer is still to be seamlessly whisked away and teated the pumps still have to be repaired cleared of chokes of tampon strings, wet wipes, condoms, nickers and nappies, the fat burgers still have to be cleared from pump stations. How loud we scream when one house has a blockage and i haven’t yet got to the treatment process when to varying degrees the liquid is purified and the solids are eventually farmed away. We once ran school tours of WWT plants but were stopped for OHSW reasons – unsafe to see, but not to work in.