For half a century, New York City residents have taken out their trash by flinging plastic bags stuffed with stinking garbage straight onto the sidewalk. When the bags inevitably leak or break open, they spill litter into the street, providing smorgasbords for rats. In the winter, the trash mounds get buried in snow and remain frozen in place for days, sometimes weeks, reinforcing the city's reputation as filthy. Now, New Yorkers are slowly adjusting to a radically new routine, at least for America's biggest city: Putting their trash in bins. With lids. In November, covered bins became a requirement for all residential buildings with fewer than 10 living units, the AP reports. That's the majority of residential properties. All city businesses had to start using bins earlier this year.
"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." The bin requirement, which took effect Nov. 12, comes with its own challenges. Among them: Finding a place for large, wheeled bins in neighborhoods 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.
In the early 20th century, New York City required trash to be placed in metal cans. But in the era before widespread plastic bag use, refuse was thrown directly into the bins, making them filthy and grimy. Then in 1968, the city's sanitation workers went on strike. For more than a week, trash cans overflowed. Garbage mounds piled high on sidewalks and spilled into the streets like some dystopian nightmare. Plastic bag makers donated thousands of bags to help clean up the mess, and New Yorkers never looked back, said Steven Cohen, a Columbia University dean specializing in public affairs. "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."
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But Democratic Mayor Eric Adams' administration has deemed trash bag mounds Public Enemy No. 1 in his well-documented war against the city's notorious rats, which have little problem getting into a plastic bag. Still, not all residents are convinced. Caitlin Leffel, who lives in Manhattan, said residents of her building had to hire someone "at surprisingly high cost" to bring out the bins the night before and bring them back in. Eventually, the largest residential buildings—those with more than 31 units—will have their own designated container on the street. New trash trucks built with automated, side-loading arms—another innovation that is already common in many other locales—will then clear them out. Fines ranging from $50 to $200 will kick in Jan. 2. (More New York City stories.)
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