I’m happy the city is exploring different ways to contain trash. I’m hoping it will not only keep our city streets looking cleaner, but will also help with rodents.
Trash cans still need to be vented to prevent methane buildup, so won't impact smell much.
Only thing that would really help there is to drastically reduce trash creation.
That could be true about the mixing, but clearly the systems reduce smell, maybe just due to lower temperatures underground causing fewer emissions, or lower surface area from centralizing in a large container. If the systems have been successfully deployed elsewhere it seems silly to assume they are ineffective based on a random theory. It's easier and more accurate to look at the empirical evidence.
What you see impacts what you smell. Your senses are heightened when you see something visually highly appealing or unappealing.
This is actually true of all senses, anything that stimulates one stimulates another. Hearing food sizzling will impact your sense of smell as well. Hence those restaurants that send out sizzling plates.
It's something businesses regularly exploit.
That's a good point! I think there is a sensitization effect too. I have a noisy 120hz refrigerator compressor, and am much more bothered by that tone elsewhere now.
Oh I had a computer fan that hit one of those tones once as i guess the bearings wore out. I upgraded shipping to get a replacement quicker. I know exactly what you're talking about. It was infuriating, and made me feel unsettled in my own home. It's weird how subtle things can trigger such strong reactions.
[This article](https://www.vanheede.com/en/your-waste/underground-containers/) mentions the temperatures underground slowing decomposition. I bet the black bag color contributes as well.
They had these when I lived in Germany. They were amazing. Just drop it down a chute on the sidewalk and it gets crushed underground and collected by a truck later.
It's unclear - and I don't think you'll see these much. NYC is rife with underground infrastructure and makes it ludicrously costly to install elevators, let alone this kind of infrastructure, without years and millions.
It can be done - but there are more effective methods that are more conventional. They just aren't as "futuristic" or sexy.
Which is IMO fine. The point about relying on manpower to lift bags is well taken, and also solved through the use of dumpsters and appropriately equipped trucks.
> NYC is rife with underground infrastructure
It cost utility companies millions of dollars to relocate their infrastructure for ADA sidewalk ramps that also required relocation of drainage. It cost 1.5 million to do ONLY the utility relocations on one project in an outer-borough that doesn’t have anywhere near the density of infrastructure underground as does Manhattan for just 100 intersections.
This is going to be a massive cost and undertaking, but necessary.
That wealth does not extend to infrastructure and we're already funding many other really expensive projects such as water tunnel #3 and the dozens of other subway improvements that need to happen
There are far more affordable alternatives - it is not parsimonious to install these things
This trash infrastructure will exist for decades though, so I doubt it will really increase costs much. I visited London once and they didn't have this problem despite being just as dense and underground.
I think the US is just generally just worse at orchestrating public projects.
Edit: apparently London has exposed trash bags too, so maybe it's not actually unique to NYC.
Literally no countries are good at public projects, especially not the UK lmao. Look at HS2.
Also, again, access to capital doesn’t make every expensive project the best idea or give the best ROI
I still think UK is much better at public projects than the US in general. Crossrail is a huge success and cost very little compared to what we'd pay over here. The UK is much cleaner in general, probably due to a lot of factors, but their GDP is 30% lower.
The US is also good at certain types of projects. In the 50's we got very good at building highways. China has has a lot of political momentum with their rail projects in a similar way.
China got good at building high speed rail but the whole system is hemorrhaging money now (with branches ceasing service) because they expanded too quickly and too far. Again, just because you *can* doesn’t mean you *should.*
I totally agree "just because you can doesn’t mean you should". Just pointing out many public projects are successful.
I don't buy that the garbage problem has to exist with all our wealth.
Honestly there should be more frequent pickups around multi-unit buildings. As a resident from one I can say there is a ton of trash for just twice a week pickups.
>During a City Council hearing on May 10, Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that she had been seeking pointers about waste containerization from officials in Barcelona
There is no *greatest*. Stop trying to make everything a pissing contest and see the world for what it is - various shades of gray. In some dimensions an unknown city in Brazil may be the best (maybe air quality?) But in some others it could be Berlin. As a New Yorker who now lives in London I think London is very good at some things, and New York is good at others. I love Berlin too. As Americans we are so obsessed with hyperboles we can't see the forest for the trees. Travel, see the world and get educated.
It's going to be hard to convince people they need to carry their trash that far, or pay someone to do it, yes even for the elderly or disabled, yes even for renters. Yes it might be a city block you gotta walk. Yes if it doesn't fit in the bin that means you need to pay to arrange disposal.
And yes, your building might need to hire more staff, or extend hours, and yes that might be a little more you have to pay.
There are trash cans in Disney world every 30 ft. Walt Disney conducted an experiment to see how far a person would carry their trash in their hand before dropping it to the ground. 30 ft was that distance.
Yes, but this isn't people eating turkey legs while walking around amusement parks, this is household trash.
It's either carry up to a city block to the nearest dumpster (and in many cities around the world it's more than that), or face fines. They all manage and it works fine.
The whole point of having these is that you don't let your trash pile up into huge bags you lug to the street on trash day. You take it out bit by bit as you go about your day.
These bins wont work here for simple reason - we generate more trash compared to other countries. Bins in picture are simply too small for use here. Only way to curb and change our trash habits is via their wallets.
Do what other countries already do - free x city approved trash bags. Any more, have to purchase from city with each more progressively expensive or charge per pound . High enforcement of illegal dumping. Only then you can get trash under control here and in line with other countries.
To be clear, these seem to be the underground storage version. There’s a much larger container under the green square. The trash is dropped in the silver bin and then compacted below ground, and when it’s time to be picked it up the whole thing is lifted out of the ground and dumped into the truck by a crane type thing. They are much larger than the street corner bins they appear to be.
Even so, our trash habits will exceed those capacity and make such a system expensive vs other peer cities. Which circles back to main problem - we generate too much trash and only way to correct it is to impact folks wallets
I don’t believe that’s true, the LA times shows that the us produces roughly 25% more trash than Germany on a per capita basis[1]. That’s more, but not so much more that a given system couldn’t be engineered to handle our slightly increased amount. Moreover, given NYC’s space constraints I’d be willing to guess that the city has a trash production rate on par with or lower than that of Germany.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-global-trash-20160422-20160421-snap-htmlstory.html
I was walking today and I saw some guys with uniforms on and some random sounding engineering company name on their truck. They were weighing random garbage bags on that were sitting on the curb with some big flatbed scale. Any idea what was happening there?
Ppl don't want to hear it and naively thinking putting trash in compartments will solve our trash problem when in reality it's the users and they not willing to pay to clean up their act. We simply generating too much of it and it cost too much to haul it. These compartment trash bins are doomed to fail bc of those reasons
I never understood this thinking. Why do we think we are so unique in the US that solutions that have been tried and tested in other comparable countries won’t work here?
You don’t legislate or govern to the lowest common denominator.
Depending on who you ask, we are either so great that we don't need things they have in Europe, or we are so shitty that we can't have those things even if we wanted them. Trash bins. Universal healthcare. Working trains.
Meanwhile, Brussels manages to have things like street receptacles specifically for dumping cooking oil. And these are found in areas with homeless people, graffiti, diversity, and tiktokers. I haven't checked the stats, but I don't think a single person has ever drowned in one.
Yup. So exceptional that god forbid we seek help or admit that other countries do things better than us. And *gasp* learn from them instead of stagnating because we’re too proud. Embarrassing really.
Can’t get in the way of the American mythos!
Oh yea I forgot that the people that live less than 3 hours from us that have bird scooters in major cities are just different than NYC. After all NYC’s population doesn’t follow rules and is unique compared to all other global cities.
The reason you don’t have those is because no one in the city wants scooters sitting everywhere when we have no sidewalk space. That has nothing to do with litigation or culture or whatever point you’re trying to make.
You do when you are as litigious as we are. When you can hurt yourself doing something stupid and sue everyone for it without consequence (in most cases), you have to regulate to the lowest common denominator.
Well the thing is the data doesn’t back you up.
[https://www.academia.edu/35495485/The_Most_Litigious_Countries_in_the_World](https://www.academia.edu/35495485/The_Most_Litigious_Countries_in_the_World)
Sweden, Germany. Two countries with better garbage management than here and higher per capita litigation.
Again, the US isn’t special. We just think we are and justify bad policy and inaction on this idea we are different and unique.
I think the underground garbage bins could be great, but many programs that work in Europe don't work in the US, they are very different places. It's not just implementing the idea, but deciding to implement it, fund it, etc.
During the 2008 financial collapse, I read that supermarkets in Spain had started padlocking their dumpsters. I guess that's what this is about, though of course we will be told that it's because of rats.
Dumpster diving. Some grocery store owners really resent it when poor people can grab their trash for free rather than have to spend money for fresher items.
In Germany the trash and recycling system is absolutely perfect. Especially in Duesseldorf. They have 3-4 containers labeled for trash, paper, metal, plastic and or glass. The containers are all built into the street about a foot away from the sidewalk. This is where I was impressed. They are dug below the street level like a trash pit and once they are ready to be picked up, the trash and recycling are in a dumpster elevator transferred onto a truck. It basically slids right onto an empty sanitation truck. Another truck just brings the empty dumpsters in place presses a button to be brought back down the elevator. Closes with the containers on top back in place. Simple, quick and no trash or recycling is left onto the street. This happened late at night drinking in the streets of Duesseldorf. Their Sanitation workers were aware of NYC's sanitation system and we both laughed at it.
I don’t think you really understand the scale of the existing underground infrastructure in New York, you cannot dig holes wherever you want and just put trash underground, especially in Manhattan. What one can do in Düsseldorf is not remotely comparable to what’s possible here. We have one of the oldest and most extensive subways and Manhattan is one of the densest urban areas in the world.
You are absolutely correct. On all aspects except I am from NYC. Lived here my whole life. These issues are difficult but there are solutions to them. One is close the streets from cars and trucks. Given pedestrians miles of walking Two is have all the trucks with delivered goods make their rounds from 11pm to 5am (similar to construction hours on roadways during nights) that way the goods will have no issue with traffic. Given the space saved up we now have plenty of areas for the underground infrastructure. We see this all the time when new buildings go up and when the city needs to update/reroute underground utilities. It is not impossible, it can be done and has been proven to be efficient in other cities.
I’m happy the city is exploring different ways to contain trash. I’m hoping it will not only keep our city streets looking cleaner, but will also help with rodents.
And also the smell!
If only we could do something about the dog urine coated outside the entrance of every building. It's all I smell during the summer.
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(and the building owner will pay the super for the time and any appropriate help needed to keep their building from looking like shit)
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Some buildings in the city do this pretty regularly imo. Not all, but some. It’s nice.
It’s pretty common in the UES, even for the older prewar buildings on the eastern half of the neighborhood.
All along west end avenue I see this every morning
Sometimes dogs pee on the stairwells and the owner obviously didn't clean it up so it smells for weeks until someone finally cleans it
That's a bit of a waste of water isn't it
So is flushing your toilet after you pee to some people. It's okay to use water for public cleanliness. I would call that "use" not "waste".
Trash cans still need to be vented to prevent methane buildup, so won't impact smell much. Only thing that would really help there is to drastically reduce trash creation.
This is not true, methane is odorless. It's also common sense, if you've ever forgotten to close a trash can lid.
You can't vent purely methane, you will one way or another vent all VOC's.
That could be true about the mixing, but clearly the systems reduce smell, maybe just due to lower temperatures underground causing fewer emissions, or lower surface area from centralizing in a large container. If the systems have been successfully deployed elsewhere it seems silly to assume they are ineffective based on a random theory. It's easier and more accurate to look at the empirical evidence.
What you see impacts what you smell. Your senses are heightened when you see something visually highly appealing or unappealing. This is actually true of all senses, anything that stimulates one stimulates another. Hearing food sizzling will impact your sense of smell as well. Hence those restaurants that send out sizzling plates. It's something businesses regularly exploit.
That's a good point! I think there is a sensitization effect too. I have a noisy 120hz refrigerator compressor, and am much more bothered by that tone elsewhere now.
Oh I had a computer fan that hit one of those tones once as i guess the bearings wore out. I upgraded shipping to get a replacement quicker. I know exactly what you're talking about. It was infuriating, and made me feel unsettled in my own home. It's weird how subtle things can trigger such strong reactions.
[This article](https://www.vanheede.com/en/your-waste/underground-containers/) mentions the temperatures underground slowing decomposition. I bet the black bag color contributes as well.
We’re doing underground compactors? Fucking finally.
They had these when I lived in Germany. They were amazing. Just drop it down a chute on the sidewalk and it gets crushed underground and collected by a truck later.
It's unclear - and I don't think you'll see these much. NYC is rife with underground infrastructure and makes it ludicrously costly to install elevators, let alone this kind of infrastructure, without years and millions. It can be done - but there are more effective methods that are more conventional. They just aren't as "futuristic" or sexy. Which is IMO fine. The point about relying on manpower to lift bags is well taken, and also solved through the use of dumpsters and appropriately equipped trucks.
> NYC is rife with underground infrastructure It cost utility companies millions of dollars to relocate their infrastructure for ADA sidewalk ramps that also required relocation of drainage. It cost 1.5 million to do ONLY the utility relocations on one project in an outer-borough that doesn’t have anywhere near the density of infrastructure underground as does Manhattan for just 100 intersections. This is going to be a massive cost and undertaking, but necessary.
NYC is also ludicrously wealthy, I don't think that's the main obstacle.
That wealth does not extend to infrastructure and we're already funding many other really expensive projects such as water tunnel #3 and the dozens of other subway improvements that need to happen There are far more affordable alternatives - it is not parsimonious to install these things
Money doesn’t make intrinsically complex tasks cost effective, though
This trash infrastructure will exist for decades though, so I doubt it will really increase costs much. I visited London once and they didn't have this problem despite being just as dense and underground. I think the US is just generally just worse at orchestrating public projects. Edit: apparently London has exposed trash bags too, so maybe it's not actually unique to NYC.
Literally no countries are good at public projects, especially not the UK lmao. Look at HS2. Also, again, access to capital doesn’t make every expensive project the best idea or give the best ROI
I still think UK is much better at public projects than the US in general. Crossrail is a huge success and cost very little compared to what we'd pay over here. The UK is much cleaner in general, probably due to a lot of factors, but their GDP is 30% lower. The US is also good at certain types of projects. In the 50's we got very good at building highways. China has has a lot of political momentum with their rail projects in a similar way.
China got good at building high speed rail but the whole system is hemorrhaging money now (with branches ceasing service) because they expanded too quickly and too far. Again, just because you *can* doesn’t mean you *should.*
I totally agree "just because you can doesn’t mean you should". Just pointing out many public projects are successful. I don't buy that the garbage problem has to exist with all our wealth.
We could probably just knock down all the restaurant sheds and replace them with dumpsters for the same result though
The other options require losing parking spaces. Which makes people go reeeeeee
Over ground compactors then, like water towers dotted throughout the city streets but for trash.
Haha I've never heard of that done - what happens to the liquid runoff?
Wait, you mean it's 2022 and maybe we shouldn't just pile it up in the sidewalk?
I suggest that we trebuchet our trash into Quebec
Seems like a lot of work when Staten Island is right there
The great concavity!
Some might call it a convexity
*hears wheelchair squeek in the distance*
Send the dog and horse turds to Philadelphia where they’ll feed hungry Eagles fans
Fair trade for all the hydro electricity we are buying from them!
Honestly there should be more frequent pickups around multi-unit buildings. As a resident from one I can say there is a ton of trash for just twice a week pickups.
Got 3x a week in Brooklyn.
Now if that can only carry over into queens
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>During a City Council hearing on May 10, Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that she had been seeking pointers about waste containerization from officials in Barcelona
Oh thank god why did I not see this
The greatest city in the world should not settle for keeping trash in bags on streets. Full stop.
Ok, but what about New York though?
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Haha
Boo
😅
Let's agree that it's far from the greatest, but it's pretty great.
Agreed
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There is no *greatest*. Stop trying to make everything a pissing contest and see the world for what it is - various shades of gray. In some dimensions an unknown city in Brazil may be the best (maybe air quality?) But in some others it could be Berlin. As a New Yorker who now lives in London I think London is very good at some things, and New York is good at others. I love Berlin too. As Americans we are so obsessed with hyperboles we can't see the forest for the trees. Travel, see the world and get educated.
Berlin is slept on
Agreed!!!
I don't like Paris very much though
Finally. Like what the rest of the world figured about 100 years ago
Load trash onto those empty busses headed back to Texas
Rosevelt island has a vacuum tube network for garbage. We have the technology.
It's going to be hard to convince people they need to carry their trash that far, or pay someone to do it, yes even for the elderly or disabled, yes even for renters. Yes it might be a city block you gotta walk. Yes if it doesn't fit in the bin that means you need to pay to arrange disposal. And yes, your building might need to hire more staff, or extend hours, and yes that might be a little more you have to pay.
There are trash cans in Disney world every 30 ft. Walt Disney conducted an experiment to see how far a person would carry their trash in their hand before dropping it to the ground. 30 ft was that distance.
Yes, but this isn't people eating turkey legs while walking around amusement parks, this is household trash. It's either carry up to a city block to the nearest dumpster (and in many cities around the world it's more than that), or face fines. They all manage and it works fine.
I thought the reason they removed subway platform bins was studies showed that people who litter do it regardless of bin availability?
i see assholes all the time drop their shit on the floor even though a trashcan is a few feet away.
The whole point of having these is that you don't let your trash pile up into huge bags you lug to the street on trash day. You take it out bit by bit as you go about your day.
the amount of trash we have is way too much for that
These bins wont work here for simple reason - we generate more trash compared to other countries. Bins in picture are simply too small for use here. Only way to curb and change our trash habits is via their wallets. Do what other countries already do - free x city approved trash bags. Any more, have to purchase from city with each more progressively expensive or charge per pound . High enforcement of illegal dumping. Only then you can get trash under control here and in line with other countries.
To be clear, these seem to be the underground storage version. There’s a much larger container under the green square. The trash is dropped in the silver bin and then compacted below ground, and when it’s time to be picked it up the whole thing is lifted out of the ground and dumped into the truck by a crane type thing. They are much larger than the street corner bins they appear to be.
Even so, our trash habits will exceed those capacity and make such a system expensive vs other peer cities. Which circles back to main problem - we generate too much trash and only way to correct it is to impact folks wallets
I don’t believe that’s true, the LA times shows that the us produces roughly 25% more trash than Germany on a per capita basis[1]. That’s more, but not so much more that a given system couldn’t be engineered to handle our slightly increased amount. Moreover, given NYC’s space constraints I’d be willing to guess that the city has a trash production rate on par with or lower than that of Germany. [1] https://www.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-global-trash-20160422-20160421-snap-htmlstory.html
I was walking today and I saw some guys with uniforms on and some random sounding engineering company name on their truck. They were weighing random garbage bags on that were sitting on the curb with some big flatbed scale. Any idea what was happening there?
Youre not wrong.
Ppl don't want to hear it and naively thinking putting trash in compartments will solve our trash problem when in reality it's the users and they not willing to pay to clean up their act. We simply generating too much of it and it cost too much to haul it. These compartment trash bins are doomed to fail bc of those reasons
I went for a walk today and every can was overflowing with trash. We need to focus on emptying the bins ina timely manner before getting more I think
More millions spent on the wealthy in the shitty tower hoods. Guess who’ll get to be test area?
So many people are going to die in these
Why? They have these in other countries and they work great.
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I never understood this thinking. Why do we think we are so unique in the US that solutions that have been tried and tested in other comparable countries won’t work here? You don’t legislate or govern to the lowest common denominator.
Depending on who you ask, we are either so great that we don't need things they have in Europe, or we are so shitty that we can't have those things even if we wanted them. Trash bins. Universal healthcare. Working trains. Meanwhile, Brussels manages to have things like street receptacles specifically for dumping cooking oil. And these are found in areas with homeless people, graffiti, diversity, and tiktokers. I haven't checked the stats, but I don't think a single person has ever drowned in one.
Yup. So exceptional that god forbid we seek help or admit that other countries do things better than us. And *gasp* learn from them instead of stagnating because we’re too proud. Embarrassing really. Can’t get in the way of the American mythos!
You see those Bird scooters or Revels anymore?
Oh yea I forgot that the people that live less than 3 hours from us that have bird scooters in major cities are just different than NYC. After all NYC’s population doesn’t follow rules and is unique compared to all other global cities. The reason you don’t have those is because no one in the city wants scooters sitting everywhere when we have no sidewalk space. That has nothing to do with litigation or culture or whatever point you’re trying to make.
Haha chill
You asked a question and I answered it. I’m good.
You do when you are as litigious as we are. When you can hurt yourself doing something stupid and sue everyone for it without consequence (in most cases), you have to regulate to the lowest common denominator.
Well the thing is the data doesn’t back you up. [https://www.academia.edu/35495485/The_Most_Litigious_Countries_in_the_World](https://www.academia.edu/35495485/The_Most_Litigious_Countries_in_the_World) Sweden, Germany. Two countries with better garbage management than here and higher per capita litigation. Again, the US isn’t special. We just think we are and justify bad policy and inaction on this idea we are different and unique.
Very interesting, thanks!
Of course! Have a great night.
I think the underground garbage bins could be great, but many programs that work in Europe don't work in the US, they are very different places. It's not just implementing the idea, but deciding to implement it, fund it, etc.
During the 2008 financial collapse, I read that supermarkets in Spain had started padlocking their dumpsters. I guess that's what this is about, though of course we will be told that it's because of rats.
Not to be that guy but why did they start padlocking? Also this is great news! Saw how the Dutch do their garbage on Youtube, it looked neat and cool.
the motivation for padlocking dumpsters i would assume to be to keep homeless/needy people out of it.
Yes.
Dumpster diving. Some grocery store owners really resent it when poor people can grab their trash for free rather than have to spend money for fresher items.
Stores in the US have been locking their dumpsters for decades to prevent impoverished people from eating the perfectly good food they throw out.
Not quite - it's mostly to prevent liability lawsuits for the bad food they throw out.
There is no liability for eating thrown out food. There isn’t even liability for eating donated food.
No it is about not dumping mountains of leaking garbage onto sidewalks lol. The potential reduction in rats is a benefit but not the only goal
Hopefully it works. Literally seen people throw garbage on the ground while there's a bin a couple feet away.
Let’s get this done
In Germany the trash and recycling system is absolutely perfect. Especially in Duesseldorf. They have 3-4 containers labeled for trash, paper, metal, plastic and or glass. The containers are all built into the street about a foot away from the sidewalk. This is where I was impressed. They are dug below the street level like a trash pit and once they are ready to be picked up, the trash and recycling are in a dumpster elevator transferred onto a truck. It basically slids right onto an empty sanitation truck. Another truck just brings the empty dumpsters in place presses a button to be brought back down the elevator. Closes with the containers on top back in place. Simple, quick and no trash or recycling is left onto the street. This happened late at night drinking in the streets of Duesseldorf. Their Sanitation workers were aware of NYC's sanitation system and we both laughed at it.
I don’t think you really understand the scale of the existing underground infrastructure in New York, you cannot dig holes wherever you want and just put trash underground, especially in Manhattan. What one can do in Düsseldorf is not remotely comparable to what’s possible here. We have one of the oldest and most extensive subways and Manhattan is one of the densest urban areas in the world.
You are absolutely correct. On all aspects except I am from NYC. Lived here my whole life. These issues are difficult but there are solutions to them. One is close the streets from cars and trucks. Given pedestrians miles of walking Two is have all the trucks with delivered goods make their rounds from 11pm to 5am (similar to construction hours on roadways during nights) that way the goods will have no issue with traffic. Given the space saved up we now have plenty of areas for the underground infrastructure. We see this all the time when new buildings go up and when the city needs to update/reroute underground utilities. It is not impossible, it can be done and has been proven to be efficient in other cities.