The bins don’t actually travel all the way to New Jersey, they stay on the street in front of your building, they’re just to prevent having massive piles of garbage lining every single New York street, every single week.
Yeah, NYC is the only place in the US that didn’t have these. I believe it was a union or mafia thing. Basically the trucks that pick up bags of trash require 3 workers and the ones that pick up the trash cans only require 2. That’s why they didn’t exist. It’s stupid.
I mean technically you can get away with just a driver and someone picking up the trash cans.
But over here they usually are still three people with those trucks. One driver and two people picking up the trash cans, one bringing a fresh one while the other puts it back.
This works in single family housing, but in the city there are waaaaay more bins at each stop.
Also the garbage bag companies Glad I think, paid it make the old metal cans like Oscar’s go away so they could sell more plastic.
I think it was after a strike by the garbage men over the condition of the metal cans. I listened to a podcast about it a while ago but can’t remember which one.
Ah, we have a separate plastic bin for mixed recycling so no issues there for us. Like someone else said, these probably are slower than an additional person when you have tons of bins like you would in a city.
Our little burg has one person pick up the trash. Trash bins are passed out by the city. The bins are specially built for mechanical pick-up. The driver stops, the arms come out, grab and dump the bin. Then the bin is set down, and the truck continues its route.
One set of trucks are for recycle, one set are for organics to grind and compost, and a third is for trash. Our family’s weekly trash usually fits in one grocery bag.
Real answer: NYC has such insane amount of residential trash that it’s actually more efficient to have someone (usually a super) just prepare the trash in specifically designed industrial bags on the curb 2x week. Like the amount is so large no single bin like this could manage any amount of trash, so they don’t even bother loading bins they just process the bags directly into the garbage trucks. My building actually has like 15 bins like these where we can store our trash for the off days and our super sorts it all when the collection comes - they’re all usually full 2x week.
So switching to a bin only system would be require either more collection days (an insane amount of spending SDNY is tax dollars) or we’re just gonna get overflow trash on the street in shitty, easy to break homeuse bags. For reference there’s zero trash on my street unless it’s collection day and the city designated bags for those are pretty much indestructible and rarely spill trash.
Except rats have been chewing through the bags, hence the bins. Knowing NYC rats they will probably learn to chew into the bins too, though. Having put-out time and pick-up time closer together would/will make more impact on the rat problem, imho
But there’s no practical way to enforce when people put out their trash.
I may have been in NYC for too long, but I honestly don’t even see how rats are a problem anyway. They generally just scavenge garbage and do their own thing. They’re in a similar category to pigeons.
Plus, they are presumably a critical food source for alley cats. I happened to stumble upon a newborn litter of alley kittens a few weeks ago. The mother must have been away hunting.
So you’re basically murdering these little kittens if you decimate the rat population in NYC by preventing them from eating our trash. You sick fucks. /s
Those babies are still little enough, if they and mom are trapped, she can be TNR and they can be socialized and adopted!
Restaurants have a specific time they put out their bags, which is several hours before the trucks actually come around. I don’t remember the numbers but there was an article about it, probably in the NYT because I subscribe for the games despite living in LA. (We use cans and Dumpsters here. Still haven’t got the whole compost thing figured out, though.)
Anyway, see if there’s a TNR organization that can foster those sweet fluffballs!
Lots of cities have residential towers and have massive truck sized bins and/or compacting bins to deal with it. The big difference with New York is that it’s towers were built before they seriously considered how to pickup and manage garbage so there isn’t space for loading docks and alleys and the other infrastructure you need for that.
Why has it taken this long to deal with their own trash?
Because New Jersey has always been right there.
The bins don’t actually travel all the way to New Jersey, they stay on the street in front of your building, they’re just to prevent having massive piles of garbage lining every single New York street, every single week.
You mean like every other municipality in the United States?
Yeah, NYC is the only place in the US that didn’t have these. I believe it was a union or mafia thing. Basically the trucks that pick up bags of trash require 3 workers and the ones that pick up the trash cans only require 2. That’s why they didn’t exist. It’s stupid.
Huh?!?
I mean technically you can get away with just a driver and someone picking up the trash cans.
But over here they usually are still three people with those trucks. One driver and two people picking up the trash cans, one bringing a fresh one while the other puts it back.
The ones where I am only have one person. The truck has an arm to pick up the bins and dump them into the top of the truck.
This works in single family housing, but in the city there are waaaaay more bins at each stop.
Also the garbage bag companies Glad I think, paid it make the old metal cans like Oscar’s go away so they could sell more plastic.
I think it was after a strike by the garbage men over the condition of the metal cans. I listened to a podcast about it a while ago but can’t remember which one.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. The trucks with the arms would be unpractical in a city where bins are more closely spaced.
We have those too. But they are for the big metal cans for paper and glass.
Those wheeled plastic bins are usually collected by something like this:
Ah, we have a separate plastic bin for mixed recycling so no issues there for us. Like someone else said, these probably are slower than an additional person when you have tons of bins like you would in a city.
Our little burg has one person pick up the trash. Trash bins are passed out by the city. The bins are specially built for mechanical pick-up. The driver stops, the arms come out, grab and dump the bin. Then the bin is set down, and the truck continues its route.
One set of trucks are for recycle, one set are for organics to grind and compost, and a third is for trash. Our family’s weekly trash usually fits in one grocery bag.
Yes! Just like that! It’s a crazy new New York invention!
Real answer: NYC has such insane amount of residential trash that it’s actually more efficient to have someone (usually a super) just prepare the trash in specifically designed industrial bags on the curb 2x week. Like the amount is so large no single bin like this could manage any amount of trash, so they don’t even bother loading bins they just process the bags directly into the garbage trucks. My building actually has like 15 bins like these where we can store our trash for the off days and our super sorts it all when the collection comes - they’re all usually full 2x week.
So switching to a bin only system would be require either more collection days (an insane amount of spending SDNY is tax dollars) or we’re just gonna get overflow trash on the street in shitty, easy to break homeuse bags. For reference there’s zero trash on my street unless it’s collection day and the city designated bags for those are pretty much indestructible and rarely spill trash.
Except rats have been chewing through the bags, hence the bins. Knowing NYC rats they will probably learn to chew into the bins too, though. Having put-out time and pick-up time closer together would/will make more impact on the rat problem, imho
Haha yeah true, I just factor in the rats as part of the population of the city.
But there’s no practical way to enforce when people put out their trash.
I may have been in NYC for too long, but I honestly don’t even see how rats are a problem anyway. They generally just scavenge garbage and do their own thing. They’re in a similar category to pigeons.
Plus, they are presumably a critical food source for alley cats. I happened to stumble upon a newborn litter of alley kittens a few weeks ago. The mother must have been away hunting.
So you’re basically murdering these little kittens if you decimate the rat population in NYC by preventing them from eating our trash. You sick fucks. /s
Those babies are still little enough, if they and mom are trapped, she can be TNR and they can be socialized and adopted!
Restaurants have a specific time they put out their bags, which is several hours before the trucks actually come around. I don’t remember the numbers but there was an article about it, probably in the NYT because I subscribe for the games despite living in LA. (We use cans and Dumpsters here. Still haven’t got the whole compost thing figured out, though.)
Anyway, see if there’s a TNR organization that can foster those sweet fluffballs!
AWWW the babies! My big guy was a bedstuy street cat, so glad I got him.
This sounds like a job for Garbage Bag Man! heroic theme music swells
Can’t someone else do it?
The garbage man can!
Lots of cities have residential towers and have massive truck sized bins and/or compacting bins to deal with it. The big difference with New York is that it’s towers were built before they seriously considered how to pickup and manage garbage so there isn’t space for loading docks and alleys and the other infrastructure you need for that.
Yeah that’s definitely true for the large high rises. Was referring to mostly walkups and brownstones.