The Department of Sanitation has produced a documentary titled “Beyond the Rubble, The Story of Sanitation and Recovery After 9/11,” which aims to honor the work of Sanitation employees who served at Ground Zero and Fresh Kills in fall 2001 and beyond. The film includes extensive archival footage and first-hand interviews of DSNY employees from the weeks and months following the attacks.

In addition to removing 3.2 billion pounds of debris from the World Trade Center site, Sanitation also provided fuel for all vehicles working at Ground Zero, cleaned the streets and washed away dust throughout Lower Manhattan, and even removed rotting food from abandoned buildings, office cafeterias and restaurants in the days following the attacks — all while continuing to pick up the trash every single day from every neighborhood across the five boroughs.

The department’s work at Ground Zero continued until June 7, 2002.

Much of the material removed from the site was placed onto barges and sent across the harbor to Fresh Kills. There, a forensic team that included NYPD and the FBI sifted material down to a quarter-inch mesh sieve to identify and recover more than 54,000 personal items and the remains of more than 300 victims of the attacks. DSNY’s work assisting in the largest crime scene investigation in history continued until July 26, 2002.

Five years ago, DSNY dedicated its first memorial to the employees who died of 9/11-related illnesses, with a plaque bearing their names in the lobby of the department’s headquarters at 125 Worth and Lafayette. But that initial memorial became too small to list the growing number of men and women who have died of 9/11-related illnesses. On September 11 this year, the department unveiled a new memorial on the façade of DSNY’s Spring Street garage on the highway just north of Canal.