BY T H E B E S T S E L L I N G AU T H O R O F M Y F R I E N D D A H M E R

Americans generate about 389 million tons of trash annually.

We recycle only 29 percent of our trash, and send 63.5 percent
★ “[An] entertaining ode to the odiferous realities of getting by.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
DERF U.S. $24.95 | Can. $29.95 | U.K. £15.99

of it—246.9 million tons every year—to landfills. BACKDERF

“The American dream is to turn goods into trash as fast as possible.”
On average, 5.06 pounds of waste per person is
—Russell Baker, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Growing Up
disposed of every day . . .
and there are 321 million of us in the U.S. alone!
PR AISE FOR BACKDERF’S
Here’s how it all breaks down, from a 2013 report issued by the U.S. MY FRIEND DAHMER Every week we pile our garbage on
the curb and it disappears—like magic! The
Environmental Protection Agency: National—and International—Bestseller reality is anything but, of course. Trashed, Derf
Backderf ’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed,
Named BEST OF 2012 by AN ODE TO THE award-winning international bestseller My
Time, The Village Voice, The A.V. Club,
CRAP JOB OF Friend Dahmer, is an ode to the crap job of all
comiXology, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly,
crap jobs—garbage collector.
MTV Geek, and more! ALL CRAP JOBS Anyone who has ever been trapped in
2013 ALA/YALSA Alex Award Winner a soul-sucking gig will relate to this tale.
Trashed follows the raucous escapades of three
2014 Prix Revelation Award Winner at the twentysomething friends as they clean the
Angoulême International Comics Festival streets of pile after pile of stinking garbage,
while battling annoying small-town bureaucrats,
2015 YALSA Award Winner for excellence
bizarre townsfolk, sweltering summer heat,
in Narrative Nonfiction
and frigid winter storms. Trashed is fiction
but is inspired by Derf ’s own experiences as a
garbageman. Interspersed with this comedic
epic of reeking garbage cans and exploding
trash bags are nonfiction pages that detail what
our garbage is and where it goes. The reality
will stun you.
DERF BACKDERF is the So hop on the garbage truck named Betty and
bestselling, award-winning ride along with Derf on a journey into the vast,
author of My Friend Dahmer and
secret world of garbage. Trashed is a hilarious,
a recipient of the prestigious
stomach-churning tale that will leave you
Robert F. Kennedy Journalism
Award for political cartooning.
laughing—and wincing—in disbelief.
For almost twenty-five years, U. S. $24.
95 Ca n.
his weekly syndicated comic IS BN 97 8- $2 9.9 5 U.
1-4197-14
53 -5
K. £1 5.9 9

strip, The City, appeared in MORE THAN 250 PAGES

more than one hundred and OF ALL-NEW STORY AND ART
forty alternative newspapers.
Derf lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cover illustration © 2015 John Backderf

Author photo © 2015 Laura Wimbels
Cover design and coloring by Pamela Notarantonio

An imprint of ABRAMS
115 West 18th Street

DERF BACKDERF
New York, NY 10011
www.abramscomicarts.com
Printed in U.S.A.
 BY T H E B E S T S E L L I N G AU T H O R O F M Y F R I E N D D A H M E R
Americans generate about 389 million tons of trash annually.
We recycle only 29 percent of our trash, and send 63.5 percent
★ “[An] entertaining ode to the odiferous realities of getting by.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
DERF U.S. $24.95 | Can. $29.95 | U.K. £15.99

of it—246.9 million tons every year—to landfills. BACKDERF

“The American dream is to turn goods into trash as fast as possible.”
On average, 5.06 pounds of waste per person is
—Russell Baker, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Growing Up
disposed of every day . . .
and there are 321 million of us in the U.S. alone!
PR AISE FOR BACKDERF’S
Here’s how it all breaks down, from a 2013 report issued by the U.S. MY FRIEND DAHMER Every week we pile our garbage on
the curb and it disappears—like magic! The
Environmental Protection Agency: National—and International—Bestseller reality is anything but, of course. Trashed, Derf
Backderf ’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed,
Named BEST OF 2012 by AN ODE TO THE award-winning international bestseller My
Time, The Village Voice, The A.V. Club,
CRAP JOB OF Friend Dahmer, is an ode to the crap job of all
comiXology, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly,
crap jobs—garbage collector.
MTV Geek, and more! ALL CRAP JOBS Anyone who has ever been trapped in
2013 ALA/YALSA Alex Award Winner a soul-sucking gig will relate to this tale.
Trashed follows the raucous escapades of three
2014 Prix Revelation Award Winner at the twentysomething friends as they clean the
Angoulême International Comics Festival streets of pile after pile of stinking garbage,
while battling annoying small-town bureaucrats,
2015 YALSA Award Winner for excellence
bizarre townsfolk, sweltering summer heat,
in Narrative Nonfiction
and frigid winter storms. Trashed is fiction
but is inspired by Derf ’s own experiences as a
garbageman. Interspersed with this comedic
epic of reeking garbage cans and exploding
trash bags are nonfiction pages that detail what
our garbage is and where it goes. The reality
will stun you.
DERF BACKDERF is the So hop on the garbage truck named Betty and
bestselling, award-winning ride along with Derf on a journey into the vast,
author of My Friend Dahmer and
secret world of garbage. Trashed is a hilarious,
a recipient of the prestigious
stomach-churning tale that will leave you
Robert F. Kennedy Journalism
Award for political cartooning.
laughing—and wincing—in disbelief.
For almost twenty-five years, U. S. $24.
95 Ca n.
his weekly syndicated comic IS BN 97 8- $2 9.9 5 U.
1-4197-14
53 -5
K. £1 5.9 9

strip, The City, appeared in MORE THAN 250 PAGES

more than one hundred and OF ALL-NEW STORY AND ART
forty alternative newspapers.
Derf lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cover illustration © 2015 John Backderf

Author photo © 2015 Laura Wimbels
Cover design and coloring by Pamela Notarantonio

An imprint of ABRAMS
115 West 18th Street

DERF BACKDERF
New York, NY 10011
www.abramscomicarts.com
Printed in U.S.A.
 PR AISE FOR MY FRIEND DAHMER

“A well-told, powerful story.” —R. Crumb

“Stunning. Horrifying. Beautifully done.” —Alison Bechdel

“A solid job. Putrid serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s origins are explored in this
fine book. Dig it—it’ll hang you out to dry.”
—James Ellroy

“This one’s still haunting me.” —Brad Meltzer

“A brilliant graphic novel and surely ranks among the very best of the form.”
—Dan Chaon

“It wasn’t easy reading this book, but I’m glad I did.”
—David Small

“My Friend Dahmer will certainly quench your dark little desires.”
—Chuck Klosterman

“Wow. Reading this is unlike any other reading experience I’ve ever had. Do it.”
—Rainn Wilson

★ “A small, dark classic.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

★ “An exemplary demonstration of the transformative possibilities of

graphic narrative.”
—Kirkus (starred review)

“One of the most thought-provoking comics released in a long time.”

—Slate.com

“Astounding.” —Lev Grossman, TIME

“One of the best graphic novels I’ve read this year.” —USA Today

“Masterful . . . a rich tale full of complexity and sensitivity.”

—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
ALSO BY DERF BACKDERF
My Friend Dahmer
 a graphic novel by
DERF BACKDERF

Abrams ComicArts, New York

editor: Charles Kochman
designer: Pamela Notarantonio
managing editor: Jen Graham
production manager: Kathy Lovisolo

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Backderf, Derf.
  Trashed : a graphic novel / by Derf Backderf.
       pages cm
  Summary: Graphic novel based on the author's time spent working on a garbage truck.
  ISBN 978-1-4197-1453-5 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4197-1454-2 (pbk.) —
  ISBN 978-1-61312-865-7 (ebook)
1.  Sanitation workers—Fiction. 2.  Refuse and refuse disposal—Fiction.
3.  Graphic novels.  I. Title.
  PN6727.D466T73 2015
  741.5'973—dc23
                                                            2015011115

Copyright © 2015 John Backderf

Published in 2015 by Abrams ComicArts, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or oth-
erwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Abrams ComicArts is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc., registered in

the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Printed and bound in the United States

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Abrams ComicArts books are available at special discounts when purchased in quan-
tity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special
editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abrams-
books.com or the address below.

115 West 18th Street

New York, NY 10011
www.abramsbooks.com
Contents
pr eface 7
prologue 9
summer 21
fa ll 73
winter 135
spr ing 185
epilogue 235
notes 244
pr eface

M y first Trashed stories were memoir, the tale of my time as a

garbageman in 1979 and 1980. These were published as a fifty-
page floppy comic book in 2002. It was my first attempt at long-
form comics storytelling. I also received my first Eisner nomination for the
Trashed floppy, so it’s always been a special project for me.
I returned to Trashed in 2010. I decided to experiment with a webcomic,
and thought a new Trashed would be a fun venture in this format. I did one
forty-page Trashed story in 2010, then another installment in 2011. But as I
worked on the narrative it became clear this was no longer a memoir. I brought
the story up to the present day and decided to make it fiction. Portions of this
book are taken from those two webcomics. This book is inspired by my expe-
riences, but none of the characters or places are real.
Thanks to my beloved editor, Charlie Kochman, for suggesting this book,
and to my awesome agent, Matthew Carnicelli. You guys are the best.
Thanks also to Pam Notarantonio, who designed and colored the cover
and babysat this book all the way to print.
And to Jen Graham, who copyedited my shoddy prose and saved me from
misspelling every word longer than two syllables.
Thanks to my old pal Mike, who made that year on the truck bearable.
Thanks to all the fans and readers around the globe who have made my
late-career reboot as a graphic novelist so fabulous.
This book is dedicated to my wife, Sheryl, who suffered nobly as a “comix
widow” for the fourteen months it took me to make it. She is, as she so often
reminds me, my muse.

Derf Backderf
Shaker Heights, Ohio
June 2015

7
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 NOTES
The main sources for this book are derived from the following:

Personal Experience
As I wrote in the preface, I was a garbageman in 1979 and 1980. That’s a long
time ago, but surprisingly little has changed in garbage collection since then.
The main difference is recycling. We recycled very little back then. In 2014,
we recycle almost 30 percent of our trash.
Though fictional, all the episodes in this book are inspired by personal
experience.
For you trivia buffs, I started on the truck roughly six months after the
events in My Friend Dahmer. Jeff butchered the body of his first victim, a
teenage hitchhiker he had murdered the previous June. He bagged up the
remains and set them out for the trash collectors! It was just a few months
before I first climbed on the back of the truck. Creepy, huh? Welcome to my
world.
I’ve supplemented my experience with recent fact-finding visits to land-
fills, both closed and active; to garbage transfer stations; and to recycling
facilities.
I also relied on the following reports on municipal garbage.

The Columbia University Biannual Report on Municipal Waste, 2014

This report, conducted every other year since 2002 by the Earth Engineering
Center at Columbia University in New York City, is the go-to source for an
accurate view of our municipal waste. Until 2010, this report was done in
conjunction with BioCycle magazine and was titled The State of Garbage in
America. There was no 2012 report, and Columbia now creates the report
on its own, with the more academically cumbersome title Generation and
Disposition of Municipal Solid Waste in the United States—A National Survey.
Columbia gets its info directly from the states, unlike the E.P.A. in its bian-
nual survey. Columbia’s report was my main source for the numbers in this
book. Garbologists and the private-waste industry also cite Columbia’s find-
ings. Even the E.P.A. uses some of the Columbia numbers in its report.

The E.P.A. Report on Municipal Solid Waste

For its report on municipal solid waste in the United States, Advancing
Sustainable Material Management: Facts and Figures 2013, the E.P.A. doesn’t
use hard data like Columbia, but rather a byzantine formula of projections

244
and estimates. Its totals are ridiculously low. For example, its 2013 munici-
pal waste total is a jaw-dropping 135 million tons less than that of Columbia
University’s. Why? Probably a mix of the usual bureaucratic dogma and a
healthy dose of politics. For example, the E.P.A. last conducted a survey of the
nation’s landfills in 1995! The agency doesn’t even know how many munici-
pal landfills are out there in the United States! Thirty years without a detailed
look at our massive dumps? Incredible. Obviously, there are political forces
that don’t want this information documented or publicized.
Still, because the E.P.A. has used the same formulas since 1960, its reports
are useful in showing trends, even if its totals are laughably inaccurate. The
2013 report was the most recent one available when this book was written.
 BY T H E B E S T S E L L I N G AU T H O R O F M Y F R I E N D D A H M E R
Americans generate about 389 million tons of trash annually.
We recycle only 29 percent of our trash, and send 63.5 percent
★ “[An] entertaining ode to the odiferous realities of getting by.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
DERF U.S. $24.95 | Can. $29.95 | U.K. £15.99

of it—246.9 million tons every year—to landfills. BACKDERF

“The American dream is to turn goods into trash as fast as possible.”
On average, 5.06 pounds of waste per person is
—Russell Baker, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Growing Up
disposed of every day . . .
and there are 321 million of us in the U.S. alone!
PR AISE FOR BACKDERF’S
Here’s how it all breaks down, from a 2013 report issued by the U.S. MY FRIEND DAHMER Every week we pile our garbage on
the curb and it disappears—like magic! The
Environmental Protection Agency: National—and International—Bestseller reality is anything but, of course. Trashed, Derf
Backderf ’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed,
Named BEST OF 2012 by AN ODE TO THE award-winning international bestseller My
Time, The Village Voice, The A.V. Club,
CRAP JOB OF Friend Dahmer, is an ode to the crap job of all
comiXology, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly,
crap jobs—garbage collector.
MTV Geek, and more! ALL CRAP JOBS Anyone who has ever been trapped in
2013 ALA/YALSA Alex Award Winner a soul-sucking gig will relate to this tale.
Trashed follows the raucous escapades of three
2014 Prix Revelation Award Winner at the twentysomething friends as they clean the
Angoulême International Comics Festival streets of pile after pile of stinking garbage,
while battling annoying small-town bureaucrats,
2015 YALSA Award Winner for excellence
bizarre townsfolk, sweltering summer heat,
in Narrative Nonfiction
and frigid winter storms. Trashed is fiction
but is inspired by Derf ’s own experiences as a
garbageman. Interspersed with this comedic
epic of reeking garbage cans and exploding
trash bags are nonfiction pages that detail what
our garbage is and where it goes. The reality
will stun you.
DERF BACKDERF is the So hop on the garbage truck named Betty and
bestselling, award-winning ride along with Derf on a journey into the vast,
author of My Friend Dahmer and
secret world of garbage. Trashed is a hilarious,
a recipient of the prestigious
stomach-churning tale that will leave you
Robert F. Kennedy Journalism
Award for political cartooning.
laughing—and wincing—in disbelief.
For almost twenty-five years, U. S. $24.
95 Ca n.
his weekly syndicated comic IS BN 97 8- $2 9.9 5 U.
1-4197-14
53 -5
K. £1 5.9 9

strip, The City, appeared in MORE THAN 250 PAGES

more than one hundred and OF ALL-NEW STORY AND ART
forty alternative newspapers.
Derf lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cover illustration © 2015 John Backderf

Author photo © 2015 Laura Wimbels
Cover design and coloring by Pamela Notarantonio

An imprint of ABRAMS
115 West 18th Street

DERF BACKDERF
New York, NY 10011
www.abramscomicarts.com
Printed in U.S.A.
 BY T H E B E S T S E L L I N G AU T H O R O F M Y F R I E N D D A H M E R
Americans generate about 389 million tons of trash annually.
We recycle only 29 percent of our trash, and send 63.5 percent
★ “[An] entertaining ode to the odiferous realities of getting by.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
DERF U.S. $24.95 | Can. $29.95 | U.K. £15.99

of it—246.9 million tons every year—to landfills. BACKDERF

“The American dream is to turn goods into trash as fast as possible.”
On average, 5.06 pounds of waste per person is
—Russell Baker, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Growing Up
disposed of every day . . .
and there are 321 million of us in the U.S. alone!
PR AISE FOR BACKDERF’S
Here’s how it all breaks down, from a 2013 report issued by the U.S. MY FRIEND DAHMER Every week we pile our garbage on
the curb and it disappears—like magic! The
Environmental Protection Agency: National—and International—Bestseller reality is anything but, of course. Trashed, Derf
Backderf ’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed,
Named BEST OF 2012 by AN ODE TO THE award-winning international bestseller My
Time, The Village Voice, The A.V. Club,
CRAP JOB OF Friend Dahmer, is an ode to the crap job of all
comiXology, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly,
crap jobs—garbage collector.
MTV Geek, and more! ALL CRAP JOBS Anyone who has ever been trapped in
2013 ALA/YALSA Alex Award Winner a soul-sucking gig will relate to this tale.
Trashed follows the raucous escapades of three
2014 Prix Revelation Award Winner at the twentysomething friends as they clean the
Angoulême International Comics Festival streets of pile after pile of stinking garbage,
while battling annoying small-town bureaucrats,
2015 YALSA Award Winner for excellence
bizarre townsfolk, sweltering summer heat,
in Narrative Nonfiction
and frigid winter storms. Trashed is fiction
but is inspired by Derf ’s own experiences as a
garbageman. Interspersed with this comedic
epic of reeking garbage cans and exploding
trash bags are nonfiction pages that detail what
our garbage is and where it goes. The reality
will stun you.
DERF BACKDERF is the So hop on the garbage truck named Betty and
bestselling, award-winning ride along with Derf on a journey into the vast,
author of My Friend Dahmer and
secret world of garbage. Trashed is a hilarious,
a recipient of the prestigious
stomach-churning tale that will leave you
Robert F. Kennedy Journalism
Award for political cartooning.
laughing—and wincing—in disbelief.
For almost twenty-five years, U. S. $24.
95 Ca n.
his weekly syndicated comic IS BN 97 8- $2 9.9 5 U.
1-4197-14
53 -5
K. £1 5.9 9

strip, The City, appeared in MORE THAN 250 PAGES

more than one hundred and OF ALL-NEW STORY AND ART
forty alternative newspapers.
Derf lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cover illustration © 2015 John Backderf

Author photo © 2015 Laura Wimbels
Cover design and coloring by Pamela Notarantonio

An imprint of ABRAMS
115 West 18th Street

DERF BACKDERF
New York, NY 10011
www.abramscomicarts.com
Printed in U.S.A.