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The city of Saint-Etienne has a total of about forty-eight markets per week that are distributed over twenty-four different sites. For the maintenance crews, the cleaning of these sites is almost a daily task. Between 13h and 13h30 each day, each maintenance team cleans the markets within its sector. The agents act together: the vehicles arrive, the men disperse, organize the area, and then leave. The action is fast and takes place simultaneously in different districts of the city as a collaboration of different services of both public agency and private companies.

In the city of Saint-Etienne, the markets are one of two types: the “selective-cleaning markets,” where the markets make just a quick first pass of sorting and cleaning their sites before a more thorough intervention by official cleaning services, or the “clean markets,” where the markets themselves are responsible for a more thorough cleaning of their sites and disposal of their own waste. At the end of each market-day, different agents enter the scene in a choreographed ballet: agents of the city clean, a private company recovers the recyclable waste, and agents of the capital collect what remains.