It's a Dirty Job, But ...

Tyler Kirkland, a guest blogger over at the awesome Destroyermen blog, describes his job as a sailor on the USS Russell ... taking out the trash. It ain't sexy, but somebody's got to do it:

So I go down this ladderwell into a space about 15’ long by 10’ wide.
This room contains a plastic shredder, 2 plastic compressors, a metal shredder, and a huge pulper. ...

I’ll empty the plastics into the shredder, and let it run for about 2
minutes, then take the shreds out of the bottom, and pour them into the compressor. The compressor takes about 30 minutes to run, but it basically takes all of the shreds, compresses them and melts them into a disk about 2’ across and 1” thick. Those disks are placed in holders ... until we pull into port or can transfer them to another ship for recycling.

The pulpables are poured into the “pulper”, which adds water, grinds and spins at a high rate of speed until it just becomes a diluted mush, and it’s processed over the side into the ocean.

I’ll be the first to tell you that it takes someone with their gag reflex in check to go down there and process waste. It can get pretty dirty and smelly, but it usually only lasts 2 hours a shift.

Somebody give this man a promotion!

(Photo: Navy)