Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

trash

trash

  • Cut the Trash: Time for New York to Pass the Waste Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act

    Waste (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Say you order a pair of shoes online. The oversized box comes in; you cut it open to reveal more packaging and the shoebox, and then you finally get to your shoes, which are surrounded by a pile of cardboard, paper, and plastic. You’re a thoughtful, environmentally conscious New Yorker, so you take the gargantuan box out to the curb for recycling and throw out the extras that you can’t recycle. 

    Here’s the thing, though – your online retailer didn’t have to send you a box three

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  • As City Council Continues Push for Sanitation Funding, Administration Touts Investments 'In a Lot of the Right Places'

    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Trash and sanitation have become a top issue for the City Council in this year’s budget season, but Mayor Eric Adams’s $99.7 billion executive budget proposal for the 2023 fiscal year that begins July 1 failed to fund many Council demands. At a hearing on Tuesday, Council members questioned administration officials on their sanitation priorities — from corner basket pickups to composting — and their approach to a problem that has

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  • How Trash Became a Top-of-the-Heap City Budget Issue

    Council Member Chi Ossé on a sanitation tour of his district (photo: John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit)


    Trash has become among the most prominent issues in this year’s New York City budget negotiations, as well as the focus of larger policy debates about how the city handles its garbage and recycling.

    The infamous mountains of black bags that clutter sidewalks, the overflowing waste baskets at street corners, and the litter on city streets have all been the subject of significant attention from Mayor Eric Adams, Comptroller Brad Lander, and many members of the New York City Council,

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  • What Comes First in City's Reset on Food Waste? Skip the Truck

    Compost collection (photo: New York City Department of Sanitation)


    Last week was Food Waste Action Week in the United Kingdom and across Canada.

    The focus? Reducing and preventing food waste, with a variety of programs supporting smarter purchasing and cooking, with the goal of attacking what nearly every household generates too much of.

    By the (Canadian) numbers: 63% of the food households throw away is considered avoidable, meaning it could have been

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  • Max Politics Podcast: The Future of NYC Trash, with City Council Sanitation Chair Sandy Nurse

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    City Council Member Sandy Nurse (photo: @SandyforCouncil)


    February 4, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: The Future of Garbage and Trash, with City Council Member Sandy Nurse

    City Council Member Sandy Nurse, the new chair of the Council's Sanitation Committee, joined the show to discuss her background in recycling and green jobs, her approach to chairing the committee, the future of organics recycling, commercial waste zones, curbside trash containerization, and more.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what

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  • 22 Ways To See The City

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    NYC's 'Open Culture' (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    Words have the power to change how we see things and how we think. In life we are often fish who don’t know what water is, going through the motions in our default state, unaware of the environment around us. But every now and then we stumble upon a realization that changes our entire view – seeing water for the first time.

    Over these past couple turbulent and transformative years, I’ve been among many who have been seeing the world anew, and I’ve been collecting these ideas, these

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  • Kathryn Garcia Talks Trash

    Kathryn Garcia sanitation garbage trash

    Kathryn Garcia (photo via the Department of Sanitation)


    This could be the election that flips an old maxim on its head: we may soon find out that there are many different Democratic ways to pick up the trash.

    While garbage probably won’t be among the top issues most voters care about when electing the next mayor of New York City, what better opportunity for a real conversation about how the city handles its trash and recycling than having the recently-departed sanitation commissioner among the candidates vying for the city’s top job.

    Kathryn

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  • A Key Piece of the City’s New Trash Overhaul You May Not Be Aware Of

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    (photo: @BKROT)


    For most New Yorkers, the city’s private sanitation industry is mostly out of sight, out of mind. Yet it impacts us in major ways. The industry’s old trucks chug and idle along inefficient routes, spewing pollution throughout the city each night. Once collected, the trash is dumped in communities of color, namely north Brooklyn and the south Bronx. Carters make huge profits while paying their predominantly black and brown workers horrendous wages.

    Some workers have reported making as little as $80 for a 16-hour shift. Even more disturbing,

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  • The City’s Pouring Money Into Trash Basket Pickup, and Complaints of Overflowing Bins are Dropping

    single wire litter basket

    (photos: Department of Sanitation)


    In the public conversation surrounding quality of life in New York City, litter baskets -- the mostly green, metal-wire trash cans standing guard on street corners throughout the five boroughs -- have taken on a unique focus. They seem to exist at the nexus between public and private life, providing relief for the refuse-laden pedestrian, and serving as a symbol of the urban order embodied in mundane municipal service delivery.

    Where baskets are placed, how often they are serviced, and how the city enforces the

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