Worldbuilding Prompt #788 - It's A Rubbish Job, But Someone's Got To Do It

Here's a post inspired by a writing prompt in the Worldbuilding Community - Worldbuilding Prompt #788 - Common jobs

Enjoy !

Image Created by AI in NightCafe Studio

There was a clatter and a crash as the shuttle dumped another load of garbage onto the seemingly endless heap which covered the ground as far as the eye could see. Scrap metal, plastics and cardboard shards bounced a few times before settling down into the pre-existing detritus, leaving behind clouds of dust.

Fredd Mulcher plodded up to the newly arrived waste, probe in hand. His sturdy reinforced boots sank a few inches with each step into the bottomless heaps of rubbish. He was followed by his trusty sidekick, a grubby yellow droid in a shape that resembled an ambulatory waste bin.

The dirt only partly hid the manufacturer's logo on the side, and the droid's designation sign; "Mark3 Consolidation, Recycling And Pulverisation Droid. Serial number 541781-N." Some wag with a marker pen had drawn over the serial number to make the 4 look like an H, and the 7 into a T.

"C'mon Shitbin," Fredd mumbled, "Let's see what exciting stuff the latest drop has in it."

The droid trundled after him obediently. It didn't respond; it was a basic model with voice command reception functionality but no vocal response or conversation unit. Not that Fredd cared. He was happy just to have something to talk to. Waste processing operatives sent to work on Dumpworld 23 weren't selected for their intelligence or social skills.

As they started to work through the new rubbish, Fredd kept up a murmured monologue directed vaguely at his unresponsive, uncomplaining companion.

"I wondered why they use us to do this job when it would be so much easier to just get a great big machine to crush all the crap into uniform blocks. But I guess they want it all sorted. I suppose there's no rush, and humans are cheaper than machines for this kind of job. And cleverer at working out what's what."

He picked up a piece of shrapnel that might once have been the fan from a high speed motor and tossed it towards the droid. The machine caught it, opened it's lid and deftly dropped the item in. The blades were topped with expensive alloy, salvaging and melting them down would pay for Fredd's wages for a couple of days.

"Some pen-pusher somewhere must have thought it was a good idea to put all the garbage of the sector in one place. I guess it makes everywhere else all sparkly and pretty. But this world's a literal stinking shit-heap. I wonder what it was like before they filled it with rubbish ?"

The broken fan was followed by half a circuit board. The hyper-dimensional chips weren't worth much, but the extellium thermal coating was valuable.

"Not a bad haul this time, Shitbin. Couple of nice bits, and nothing weird and nasty. Remember that foot we found last week ? All encased in carbonite, it was, just one solo foot. Glad we didn't find the rest of the body."

Poking around with his stick, Fredd sorted through the waste. Most of it was just normal rubbish. Tangled, unidentifiable bits of metal, plastic and cloth. He grimaced as he turned over what looked like a blonde hairpiece of some kind; it was shaped like a cinnamon bun, and the reverse side was covered with dried blood.

Being a waste processor wasn't a pleasant job, but it was probably the best-paid job someone like Fredd could aspire to. He had a nice work partner, and office politics really wasn't a thing he had to worry about.