Trash Talk: How New York plans to manage its garbage problem

For New Yorkers ‘putting away the trash’ means to literally put bags full of stinking trash on the sidewalk. This has been the norm in the city for years.

Now, things may change for New York residents as they have to put their trash bags in dustbins with lids. What’s more, failing to do so will ensure hefty fines on residents and building owners. These covered dustbins have become a requirement starting this month for all residential buildings with fewer than 10 living units.

“I know this must sound absurd to anyone listening to this who lives pretty much in any other city in the world,” said Jessica Tisch, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, who oversaw the new measures before becoming the city’s new police commissioner this week. “But it is revolutionary by New York City’s standards because, for 50 years, we have placed all our trash directly on the curbs.”

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Those residents who have lived in other cities and seen the trash management system agree that it is high time one of America’s most populated cities adopt some kind of trash management system to avoid the issue of overflowing trash and uncontrollable rodents.

“You see plastic bags open with the food just rotting and stinking and then it leaking out over the sidewalk and into the road,” said John Midgley, who owns a brownstone in Brooklyn and has lived in London, Paris and Amsterdam. “Just the stink of it builds up, you know, week after week after week.”

How is the trash managed in New York City?

New York City generates approximately 20 million kilogrammes of waste daily from homes, businesses and institutions while the city’s sanitation department collects only around 11 million kgs of it, the rest is managed by private garbage carters.

How did trash come to be placed in black plastic bags?

Earlier, metal cans were used across the city to throw trash but these turned grimy and filthy since trash was directly thrown in them. Then in 1968, the city’s sanitation workers went on strike. For more than a week, trash cans overflowed and garbage mounds piled high on sidewalks and spilled on to the streets like some dystopian nightmare.

To clean up the mess across the city, thousands of plastic bags were donated by plastic bag manufacturers. Since then, New Yorkers have never looked back, said Steven Cohen, a Columbia University dean specialising in public affairs. Thus, the practice of throwing trash in plastic bags came into effect.

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“It had to do with convenience,” he said. “After the strike, the sanitation workers preferred the modern advance of lighter and seemingly cleaner sealed plastic bags.”

These became more convenient for sanitation workers because plastic bags were handy and could easily be thrown in the trucks while keeping odours from emitting out of the bag.

What’s the problem of rats?

In the fight against the city’s notorious rat population, Democratic Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has named trash bag mounds as one of the reasons for the growing population of rodents.

Rats have little problem getting into a plastic bag. Durable bins with closing and locking lids should, in theory, do a better job of keeping them out.

What are the challenges with closed dustbins?

The closed bins will pose some problems of their own once they come into effect.  One of the issues will be -  finding a place for large, wheeled bins in neighbourhoods where most buildings don’t have yards, alleys or garages. Landlords and homeowners also have to collect the empty bins and bring them back from the curb in the morning — something you didn’t have to do with plastic bags.

Caitlin Leffel, who lives in Manhattan, said residents of her building had to hire someone “at a surprisingly high cost” to bring out the bins the night before and bring them back in three times a week. “I know there are problems with the way this city has collected trash for years,” she said. “But the way this programme has been rolled out, it has not taken into account many of the nuances of living in New York City.”

Building superintendents are also grumbling about the added work of bringing bins back from the curb. “It’s completely rearranged our lives,” says Dominick Romeo, founder of NYC Building Supers, a group of building managers that recently rallied in front of City Hall against the new requirements. “Folks are running around like crazy.”

Eventually, the largest residential buildings — those with more than 31 units — will have their own designated container on the street.

Secondly, new trash trucks built with automated, side-loading arms will also be brought in to clear out the bins.

The upgrades should make pickups easier and cleaner, even if it might take longer for trash collectors to make the rounds, says Harry Nespoli, president of the union representing some 7,000 city sanitation workers. For now, he says, workers are still tossing trash into their trucks manually, which has its downsides.

“Some places, they’re not even using bags. They’re just putting their trash into the bins,” Nespoli said. “It’s going to take time to get everyone to do it the right way, but at the end of the day, it’s our job to pick it up.”

How much fine will be levied?

City officials, for now, are issuing written warnings for non-compliance. Not everyone knows about the new rules yet. But come January 2, fines ranging from $50 to $200 will kick in.

“No one wants to live on a dirty block,” Tisch said. “No one wants to walk past a heaping mound of trash and trash juice when they are leaving to go to work or they are walking their kids home from school.”

With inputs from AP